Long Legs

What strikes my eye in your image are the lines and geometry. The un-named flower cants to the right and the image forms imaginary lines from the Long Legs that would be approximately perpendicular to an axis that would be at an angle exactly opposite to that of the flower; leaning left. And the opposite orientation of the two flies, up and down, make the opposing angular geometry formed by the legs all the more interesting.

The silouhette illumination of the fly on the left contrasts with the specular reflectance of the one on the right. I would like to know more about the lighting. From the data you provide, it surely appears to be natural light. A very nice level of sharpness under the circumstances, enough to definitively portray the geometric content. But, again, the contrast in lighting on the left and right is nice and I'd love to know more about how it was achieved.

So in summary, you've motivated me to get out my extention tubes again, and more importantly, to attempt to regenerate the levels of committment and energy it takes to make an image like this. Very nice work! Thanks for investing the time and energy it took to make and share it.

Dear John,

Many thanks for your comment on my image of the long legged fly, and you have taken quite a while to understand the details in the image. To give you a background to this image, I am a person who would like to wrok with cross ligting or backlighting, be it a macro subject or otherwise.

I was in search of spiders and ended up with this subject really. This was in a wooded and neglected area of a very large public garden, and at about 8 in the morning. There wasnt enough light, and that was the reason for the flies to be there in the first place,and quite damp with the overnight dew. On seeing the activity of the flies on the "inflorescence of Anthorium" I decided to stay there to shoot this one.

The frontal lighting would have given me the detail in the fly and the flower, but then the depth would have reduced, and would have ended up with an image with lot of detail and very little depth, or may be even a flat image. There was a lot of light filtering through the trees, and top portion of the flower was getting some amount of light.

I was working with 800 ISO due to the low light on the subject where I was shooting from, and had to move to 1/30, or 1/40. at 6.3 and 5.6.

I had a 100mm lens, but then the could not get anywhere close, and had to work from a distance. The subject being small, I required some magnification. The halos created by the aperture blades were fairly constant ..and I was also shooting at an upward angle to get them into the frame.

I wanted to get an image where a couple of these insects were looking at each other, or when two males fight with each other... and that was the real symmetry that I intended, but they were never in one place. and kept moving around.

Keeping the bright halo constant in the frame, the only option was wait for one to walk into the circle. The fly on the right was not my concern, and initially thought it disturbed the frame.

With the 70-200 lens I used two extension tubes, which further reduced the light.

To begin with, I decided to post this, as I was on this subject for about an hour and half or so.


Many thanks again for stopping by.

Balan Vinod

Balan:
Like the symmetry in the image. Your commitment to special lighting and tenacity in getting image really comes through in the details and timing to get the comp you envisage. Kudos for making this

Interesting image, Balan. Like John, I like the variety of geometric shapes captured in this single image. Very cool. I do wish the fly on the right was sharper, but that may have negatively affected the background design. Thanks for sharing.

Wow. Three things have made it outstanding 1) one dominant color 2) Two balancing flies 3) Main fly in the bokeh TFS

That's a fascinating flower and I like how you've got the flies on both sides. The bokeh is also nice and well positioned. I do wish for more depth of field, but understand the challenges of getting closer.