Photography logo

Pollen Count

Macro Photography

By Cameron HamptonPublished 3 years ago Updated 3 years ago 3 min read
1
Pollen Count

I live in the southern United States. You know the place where kudzu overgrows unwitting backyard lawn chair snoozers, where the humidity and the temperature are usually equal, creating air so thick you can see and swallow it and where insects grow to prehistoric sizes and intimidations.

I was raised up to understand that the insects, whether the flying, crawly, slithery or the ones there’s no name for how they move about are a part of the southern way of life. I’m no fan of the ones that hang glide down and always make an appropriately horror-like macabre surprise landing on my Bar-B-Que plate, the palmetto bugs, aka the big-ass cockroaches, but I do appreciate a pollen coated flying insect when I see one.

One night, while I was calling my cats in for the evening, I found a yellow tinged with pollen flying creature taking a rest on my back porch banister. I watched him and thought, this little guy is begging for attention. I’ve photographed many insects before. I love entomology and macro photography. I have a place set up in my studio for when an occasion arrives; nothing fancy or expensive. I have two pieces of white foam board, foam board used primarily for framing pictures but in this case used as a background and base, and at the time I photographed this particular insect, a fluorescent lamp. I used a fluorescent lamp because they did not get hot and so would not harm the insect I was photographing. Now, I use LED’s, also known as Light Emitting Diodes, because fluorescent lamps are being phased out in the United States.

I carefully collected the insect and sat him on the foam board. I turned on the fluorescent light. I did not start photographing him immediately because fluorescent lights needed a good minute to “warm up” and come into their true color temperature. This also gives the insect time to settle down and understand their surroundings.

This particular insect was a bit antsy, so I gave him a pencil to perch on. This seemed to calm him down and make him more comfortable. When I looked on my camera screen in macro mode I couldn’t believe the amount of pollen on him. He had a lot of fuzziness about him too, as most insects have. I also noticed his large, beautiful sponge like eyes. They clearly showed the thousands of lenses looking back at me.

Usually, I average about three minutes to photograph insects. I never go over five minutes to photograph any insects. I always keep in mind that they are a living creature and are being stressed. I used my pocket digital Nikon camera set on macro. My other more professional digital cameras were not charged so I opted to use my pocket camera. I bring this up because most people seem to think that you must have the most expensive cameras and studio set up to get a good photograph. Not true.

I took around ten photographs; mostly making sure the insect wasn’t about to crawl or fly off and to make sure I focused on the insect’s eyes. When using a macro setting, there is usually a shallow depth of field. Meaning the amount of focus is small. If I had been only a minuscule off the eyes would have been out of focus. This took a combination of mental multitasking and patience.

Another note, and I’m not completely sure, but the light that I used seemed to quiet most insects down. I have never had an insect fly off. Several have crawled or slithered about, but never off of the foam board base. Again, this took no more than three minutes. I always respect the insect.

This was a rewarding and surprising macro photograph for me to capture. It reminded me of how important every little insect is to the environment by spreading pollen. After I returned the insect back to my back porch banister, I thought that maybe the insect seemed as interested in me as I was to him. But then I thought, no, I was more interested by far. ∞

art
1

About the Creator

Cameron Hampton

Cameron Hampton is a painter, photographer, illustrator, cinematographer, animator and writer.​

She now works in Georgia, London and NYC.

https://artistcameronhampton.wixsite.com/cameronhampton

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.