Nature’s architect

The perspective you chose puts the viewer right in the web. The spotlight behind the spider is perfectly positioned but somehow did not cause a silouette. Interesting subject, comp and detail.

Excellent first post. This is wonderful Bob. I love the spotlight behind the spider as it really adds a unique character to the photo.

Very nice shot. The light behind the spider adds a lot.

Congrats

D&L

Robert:
Excellent comp! The spotlight and web draws the eyes to the spider and keep them there - very engaging. Well done

Great interest Robert..I'm thinking
Can only quess that you used your flash from the front of course, then a constant light source shining through a small hole in some green poster-board or such?
Let me know if you care to divulge your trade secrets
Nicely done, I like it

Thanks for all the the kind comments folks!

Howard, you're pretty close. The backlight was a point source made from a high-power, warm-tint, white LED (with a high CRI of 93). The bg was a 13x19 inch print of the prickly pear cactus where the spider was found. Front lighting was provided by a color balanced fluorescent light (Ott Lite).

This was not a trivial one day setup and shoot. I pre-visualized this image several months before it was completed. It required a lot of research on keeping orb web spiders in captivity (arachnophobes need not apply ) and building a custom terrarium made from a thin shadow box with sliding optical glass panels so the spider and web could be photographed either through the glass or directly, with the glass removed. The one 'secret' I won't reveal is the method for forming the even dew droplets on the web. It took a lot of experimentation. The other difficult part was getting the spider to build a nearly perfect web in captivity---they don't take instruction well! As far as I know, I'm the only one determined enough or crazy enough to do this for making closeup and macro images of a web spiders.

Bob

Can't imagine how it was done but it's awesome.Great technique

Thanks so much for the complement, Cheryl. I looked at your site and you seem to be creating similar images, excellent work! I'm currently in the process of completing perhaps my least favorite task, downsizing several hundred images to be uploaded to my SmugMug gallery. I'll provide a link in one of my future image posts.

Bob

After a question in the NPN General Discussion Forum (NP Discussion) regarding focus stacking ( http://www.naturephotographers.net/imagecritique/bbs.cgi?a=vm&mr=57542&CGISESSID=e25b116a2161cd1799f793479babc880&u=18552 ), I realized I should also have mentioned that this image was created from three separate images, which were focus stacked in a sw app called Zerene Stacker. Helicon Focus or PS (CS4 or CS5) might also have worked in this case, but in my opinion Zerene Stacker almost always provides much better results for achieving greater DOF in close-up and macro images.

Bob

Hey Robert, great job on setting this up and pulling it all together. Well done and thanks for the tech info on how you did it.

Thanks, Mike! Coming from you that truly means a lot to me. I've followed your work for years and have a link on my desktop to your blog and gallery, so I can see what you're up to.

Regards,
Bob