Potter/Mud dauber wasp: the making

Respost for folks from Reddit.

(A propos of nothing: some of you may like these)

  

Here's some sense of how the whole process goes. The series also gives you an idea of how long I spent on getting these images. Its only towards the completion of the second or even third pot that I got what I wanted. I think it took a week I think before I nailed the lighting and focus.

I wanted the wasp completely in focus, so absolutely parallel to the lens plane. So I watched it to figure out its behavior and realized it would hover in front of the pot for just a couple of seconds before landing. So I rigged the tripod to be just low enough to be eye level to the wasp and just parallel to its incoming flight path. 

My only light source was either natural light or my handheld manual Vivitar 5000. I did have an extension cable at least. Initially I just worked on getting the exposure right so I got nice wing blur but a stable insect. You can see their bodies are quite still, even when their wings move.

Then I worked on getting enough light on the wasp and on the wall behind the wasp. If you held the light parallel to the wasp body, the light on the wall fell off very fast and the right edge of the image was too dark. Not to mention the ugly shadow of the pot either below or beside the pot (See images 2, 3 and 4). I didn't have a second flash to do a fill light. (I was a poor grad student then.) 

So the light had to be held just so. Once the wasp was hovering, the ring-light was held behind it so the insect was in its centre. And the light was tilted towards the wall, so off at an angle to the wasp and pushing more light to the wall, behind the pot. The light is also slightly above the wasp, pointing down a bit as you can infer from the specular highlights and shadows. This last part wasn't necessarily intended, but altogether it worked. The image hangs together

As you can see there is still some fall off on the wall and the front of the mud ball and the face of the wasp is not as highly lit as the thorax and abdomen. But both those are acceptable compromises. The image hangs. And that is how I made this image. I didn't click it, I didn't snap it, no, no, I stalked it and I made it.

Bring mud to make pot

Shape pot out of the mud brought in 

Stock the pot with alive but paralysed soft bodied prey like caterpillars and spiders.

Lay a single egg and seal the pot. See sealed pot in image no 1.

Potter wasp: National Wildlife Federation photo award winner

So, what if I don't photograph as much any more? My old photographs still win awards! This image which is in my book just took the first position in the Backyard habitats category in the National Wildlife Federation photo contest. The NWF is an American conservation organisation and they've been running this contest for (woah!) 43 years! Some of you may remember I've won before, in 2007, in the Habitats category.

Its not yet at WPY quality, which still is the gold standard, but its pretty good. I was told my image was selected from among 32k images; I'm pretty stoked. The quality of the contest entrants appears to be pretty high and getting better and better through the years. Slideshow below!

Baby steps, baby steps :)

Copyright © Natasha Mhatre If you're reading this without attribution to me anywhere other than at my blog Talking Pictures, its probably being plagiarized.

Finals

Hmmm, remember that post about that competition I made? Well I'm in the finals :)!!! Winners will be informed June 30th, they usually announce finals results around October. Fingers crossed.

Done: now for some sleep

Ok the entry has been sent. Well, mostly, I can still add images upto...today...the end of it that is UK time. This feels like homework for courses, 'Thursday means anytime until 12pm right?'

The best part of prepping my entry this time was the Nature in black and white section. Here's one of my favourites. I haven't done much b/w recently and it was great returning to that way of seeing. Figuring out what would look good in monochrome and prepping the entry has to have been the best part so far, now if I win....*LOL*

Slowness is not death, I hope.

This is the current state of affairs at this end. Well, ok I'm at least not obsessing over gear, just not shooting very much.

What with trying to get work on track, going home for a quick visit and trying to get submissions off to WPY for this year I haven't had much time for shooting or chasing people up over the book. I've already missed the mail-in deadline, I can't afford to miss the online entry one. Wish me luck.

Prints

Umm, I think I've given the impression that the only print up for grabs is the roach. Actually you can pretty much ask for any of the pictures from my website.

Parental care

The phrase parental care often brings up images of some mammal cuddling its furry large eyed child to its bosom. It seems the epitome of bonding between parent and child and visual images abound, like Raghu Rai's the small hand within the large hand.

Yet some of the most amazing stories of parental care actually occur within the so called 'lower' organisms. I'll tell you about the most amazing one. The now extinct gastric brooding frog female swallows her externally fertilized eggs and they remain in her stomach for weeks before they are old enough to brave the world on their own. The frog does not eat the whole time!

Still, invertebrates? Really? Can somethings that 'low' actually show such 'evolved' behaviour. I think people underestimate insects. Even those that don't would perhaps find it hard to like cockroaches. Yet here is a description of cockroach brood care from an abstract of a technical paper.
" Cockroaches show the entire range of reproductive modes: oviparous, ovoviviparous, viviparous, and intermediate stages. Postparturition parental care is likewise diverse, ranging from species in which females remain with neonates for a few hours, to biparental care that lasts several years and includes feeding the offspring on bodily fluids in a nest. "
In fact these insects are called sub-social and these behaviours are believed to be precursors to the more admired eusociality observed in some other insects. Termites the well known superorganisms, of the social insect world are phylogenetically quite close to roaches. So look closer before turning away in disgust the next time!

(For people who wanted to know more tech stuff about the image, it was shot in the daytime in IISc, in Sept 2005. f32, 1/60 with a cheapie manual ring flash the vivitar 5000, Nikon D70 and MicroNikkor 105mm.)

And its out!

My dad called up to say that the pictures were in the papers in Bombay. And I also received a 'formal' letter today. Since the news is out, I can announce it here as well!

This image of cockroach mum carrying her young nymphs on her back won the joint third position in the Sanctuary ABN AMRO Wildlife photographer of the year, 2006! (That's a mouthful!) The second picture of a sunbird hovering over flowers won a commendation in the same contest.
This is pretty cool, there are many very good wildlife photographers in India and well the competition is pretty stiff. So it's cool to win!

Also one of the nicest things about receiving this award was the very thoughtful letter I received announcing it. This isn't merely a you won note, theres a thoughtful analysis of why I won, which is unusual. None of the award letters/emails I've recieved before quite matched up. Off course, I didn't manage to go for the Living light awards in (which was a national competition organised by GNAPE and Ecotone, where I won first place in the seniors category) where apparently very nice things were said about the picture. (PS yes I AM bragging :) )

For those that don't already know, both these images and many other pictures are on my website (which I promise to spruce up at some point, bear with the poor graduate student). And if you want to use any image for any purposes, please talk to my stock agency, Visage images.

If you're from IISc and just want some prints drop me a line and we'll work something out.

Theres another post for those who want to know a bit more about this image and the biology.

Shell wildlife photographer of the year announced.

Mosey on over and have a look at the award winners. You can leave a comments as well. I would love to see them at the nhm, tiny images on the website dont really do that much justice to some of the images.

Placing internationally is GOOD for the ego

Update:
I'm skipping one post and going on to this one which provides info that made me *very* happy! The added bonus is that you get to know which picture made the finals...

It has shown up here. Check out the 2005 finalists, I'm week 1 in October
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I just got an email telling me I'm a finalist in the National Wildlife Federations 2005 photography competition!!!!!! Yea!!!! I think I'm a bit giddy!

Originally posted: Nov 15 2005

Semis

Hmm the Natural History Museum and the BBC run a wildlife photography competition thats the most prestigious in the world. The top award is called Wildlife photographer of the year, prefixed by the company sponsoring it and postfixed by the year.

I'd sent entries for the first time this year, and got a mail yesterday saying I'd gotten as far as the semi finals. While I cant help but be a wee bit sorry I didnt do better, semis is good right?