About Photographer

Some interesting video

1. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQShF2fvUIM

Photo Fair

All are invited to the Photo Fairs
See below, or download https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9OCj8WZm6J3ZTFxYmtSU211c3c/edit?usp=sharing

Edward Weston, Paul Strand,

Edward Weston used large format camera. Life was tough in 1930, could be the explanation on his subject matters, nude on dunes, mushrooms, more dunes, nude form. His work is minimalistic, simplistic, and abstract.



Wikie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Weston

1. 
   

Paul Strand

Sebastiao Salgado: The Photographer as Activist

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6fRykp6nRQ

Cicada

About cicada.

!7 years Cicada

Cicada molting,

emerging from the soil, httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcFYh0KY8_Q&NR=1

Conversation with Jessica on Appreciating the MicroWorld

Here is conversation with Jessica on Appreciation of the MicroWorld. Learning and sharing on lessons derive from insects and spiders.

Appreciation of the MicroWorld - Talk at the Admiral Garden CommunityCentre

Meng Foo first tried his hand at photography at the age of 15, and had not looked back since. Through his camera, he has documented street scenes, fashion, sports and architecture. Four years ago, Meng Foo stumbled upon a new realm by chance - the Micro World - and began devoting all his creativity and time to shooting the elements of the Micro World, a world that has become close to his heart.
Meng Foo's talk will explore as well as provide an appreciation of the Micro World. What:     Inspired by the world of the Arthropod
When:     10 Oct 2009  Saturday 1930 hrs
Where: Admiral Garden Community Centre
Blk 649 Woodland Ring Road   (S) 730649
RSVP 98203865.
Web:     http://www.insecthunter.net

Appreciating death

A relook at the passed images.

We tend to see more of an image, not in the instance we depressed that shutter, but persistent meditation on the meaning of life, of existence and being. Inherent in the image is the message of birth, being and death. When meditating on the image, the meaning of an image reveals itself, in slow certainty, not in a flash, but it could come in a flash, a leap from normalcy, across the gap of invisible terrain.

Nights are always quiet, silence; days are a whole loaf of materialistic demands and bodily desires, that is the lure of the urban live. The night clears away those disturbances; we gain focus when darkness obliterated sight, reducing all existence to its essential. Only commanding a calm sense of ignorance, through sheer responsibility to the quest, silence could be found in daylight, with selfishness and irresponsibility required to overcome that momentous monster, social culture, a ‘they’ invisibly cajoling conformity, a slew of slogans of accepted goodness. Morality is borne from them, a form of coercion, to conform, to become, for the good of predictability and governance. Would we need morality when living in solitude and remoteness? Do we need morality when you are you. Or I am me. Would you think there is a need for morality in the social being of the ants and bees? Would you think that morality exists, or it is a mortal invention? And why all mortals think there is one, morality, and is it truth? What is creativity? Create, implies, new, leaping from the here and now to another landscape, non-conforming, difference, other than. And when creativity and morality collided, an immense nebular came into being, and when the nebular subsided, you rejoiced, like the nebular it too would subside.

With such monstrosity, with colorized lenses we could derive meaning and insight from behind each image we had taken. Exert values such as ‘to kill is to sin’ and we well up emotion of pity and a sense of injustice, from our righteous souls. ‘Wasp nibbling in mid-flight’ stirred the ocean of morality, jolted you. Imagine you were the spider. In that silence, death gripped you, you are as helpless as the spider, when face with the superior wasp, face with nature, face with fate, torn and tattered to the core, utterly helpless, if you are as omnipotent as god, you could right the wrong, but you, human, powerless, painful, is trapped, trapped within a body and an illusive heart. You need liberation. You need a way out of this unfairness. Why? Why some are borne to die a tragic death? All are borne to die. Why the privilege of one over the other? You see the pain and the painless. What if your death gives life and meaning to other souls? Indeed, a good deed in death, over a painless unworthy death, is preferred. Yet, it is still death. Death has to be worthy. Death has to be worthy. Death has to be worthy. It screamed in silence and determination. Death has to be worthy; life has to be worth living too. We latched on to its last defence, some are willing to die a worthy death, unwilling to believe otherwise, some see the futility of life, others see the futility of death, facing it squarely as the moment of returning to the source. All those thought are indeed a form of burden, death cannot be proven of its worthiness, all livings however they think and thought have to cease living at one moment or another when it come. Yes, nature’s fairness, the being of beings.

Calm down, take deep breath, long and slow.

Remove the veil of morality, remove questions, and return to the surface of the image. Draw towards the wasp, trace the wasp, from the eyes, amazing red, glittering, energy, radiant, vitality, the mouth, the thorax, the flapping wings, in unison, the legs, the constricted waist, the abdomen, the curve, the pointedness, the texture, the pattern, colour, the minuscule hairs. Complete beauty!!! Such wondrous miniature contains life, being and death. It is so small and yet so complete. Complete! Life in this being is.

The flapping of the wings in unison with the pull of the beaks, tearing the Cyclosa’s remaining cephalothorax away from its head, the Cyclosa in its death had offered itself up as nutrients to the wasp and its offspring. The cyclosa becomes the giver of live and sustenance so the wasp could live.

Facing death. a mangled piece, a head, an eye pops, the placid legs, red, torn, see it, go through every nuance of it. Fear and the urge to escape gripped us. Fix on it and see it as you would see the beauty of the wasp. In death we find liberation. Unite both within a single instance. Life, being and death. The being of the wasp is to feast on the spider. A completion, closure, calm and peaceful. Nature is. Is wonderful. Here we see a completion of nature’s work, again, in repetition -¬ birth, being and death.

Why is death liberating? Imagine you are the spider. Imagine that dying moment, as death grips you, it erases all that you had done, it erases your worthiness, it erases you. Fear, extreme fear, penetrates you deep, deep into your soul, and erases your soul, erases your being, to the point of total erasure. You scream. Scream out your soul. See it vanished. Your denial is futile. You feel that cold sweat and coldness shrivel up the spine.

In death, nothing else matter, desires, debt, hatred, anger, anxiety, joy, love and all emotions; all vanished. One is forgiven and one forgives. So imagine you are the spider, in that instance, liberated, one gave its life to another being, there is no foe, enemy, nor love, pure being, freeze in that moment, a singular moment. All is a pristine whiteness. Lost grips you, shaken, and arrive at a sense of immense liberation.

From that barren whiteness, a wasteland, life start a new, death nourishes beings and gives birth to another, more live flourish, another time, another day, another month, another year, in recurrence, in eternity. One sees its persistence and our futility of denial. It is an impossibility to phantom death, but we could phantom that death liberates. Life is a form of energy, transforming from one form into another.

The Cyclosa’s death, had also liberated those that could had been captured by the web that was spun by the Cyclosa. Now those smaller animals were given a chance to survive and mature; they have the wasp to thank. As one lay down their power, whether destructive or creative, it allows others to flourish and mature. Those that had risen would have to fall some days, the sage cautions, in high places, serve with humility and in low places, serve with pride.

The Injured King

History and potentiality
The portraitures made by Avedon of remarkable personalities, captured a certain epoch iconographed by their persona, and yet we see that split second of vulnerability, which Avedon, a hunter, armed with the ability to slice through that thin moment, laser like, made eternal that particularity of emotion, returning them to their humane existence, the susceptibility of fear, rejection, despair, and bewilderment, re-establishing their trivial existence commonly found in any humanly being. Avedon’s Marilyn Monroe, the highly charged sex symbol, was caught in the glimpse of exhaustion, contrary to her famous cliché image of dancing with flaring white skirt, dynamic, youthful, energetic, immortalized by Matty Zimmerman. We, the mortal souls, have our moment, of a publicly upheld persona and a simpler definitive existence. This duality exists in everyone, you and me, however simpler our beings are. This duality, had a simultaneous existence in Avedon’s Marilyn Monroe, it is both historical and ahistorical; she marked the era of woman’s emancipation, sexual liberty and her relentless dissipation of energy surmounting in eventual revelation of tiredness in her privacy, however huge her external persona, she is, after all, a human, human all too human. Would any arthropod in their being have that duality? Are they outside this nature? Is the rule of nature singularly pervasive, with a simultaneous existence in all beings? This is a question worth exploring and fantasizing. Yes fantasizing, would you not agree that for what is real, exists a priori in our consciousness, before we perceive it in our reality. I think therefore I am, such powerful dictum, that trace everything whether real or conjured to our consciousness, terminating in the ‘I’.

Would the introduction of the camera, induce the arthropod to perform, to straighten up and put on a perceivable ‘I would like to be seen persona’, as would most mortals? Is this occurrence pervasive in arthropods or particularly prominent in certain order of arthropods? Perceivably this trait would be more alarming in actors and actresses.
The prominent character trait of the fighting spider is that they love to fight. When two males met each other, they would go into a trance like dance, made semi-circle around each other, sized each other up, charged at each other, and snapped both front legs in a frantic horizontal movement, sometime they fight till one died or one’s limb was bitten off. The looser would run away and the other would give chase. We would declare triumphantly the winner. Is not fighting a savage trait that we all inherited when we were born, as a skill of survival, gaining the privilege to be here, in this being of presence? Through history, we could see that intelligence and art, is a form of decadence in survivality, savage and brutality is the skill in the preservation of the lineage. The Mongols and the Qing, seemingly rule over the far superior civilisation of the Song and the Ming. 

Would we be able to record the history of the arthropods, its history, or its history relative to our being? Have we ever seen a massive war conducted by one insect against another? Most of us would have. We could not understand the feud between them, but we could see one of these episodes play out in documentary; they recur.
Everyday there are so many births and deaths, as well as the continuum between them. Hardly any being, animate or inanimate could escape, the trinity: birth, being and death. Their histories are so insignificant to us, perhaps due to the lack of perceivable connection between ours and theirs, or perhaps their occurrence was predictably replayed with such certainty that we call them behaviour. History with certainty becomes a pattern, a definite thing, a triviality. Would each episode be exactly similar? Very Unlikely. However, at macro level, a blurring of the particularity recalls only the certainty of the event. Our inability to see them in detail, their minute nuances, nor even recognising their differences, nor identify this spider from that spider, we would not be able to postulate their history. They look predictably similar. Would this generality present itself when we zoom into them in the computer? No one was known to have acquired that sensibility to tell them apart by their faces after repeated scrutiny. Would you be able to empathise the sorrow faced by the loosing spider, or the pride of the winner? As I recall, their identity could be found in their movement, peculiar within each, slight variation in shape and colour, or their deformity, but seldom could we be dead sure of their identity.

Perhaps the history in fighting spider is derived from the history of human vanity, as most of us would be emotionally attached to their fighting spiders during younger days; this is enthrallingly worth conscious exploration. It had become the collective memory of those post second World War generation, the baby boomers. Spider had become the preoccupation of school students after studies during the seventies. Fighting spiders had a huge following, they had a star status within captivity, we were their trainers and pride that was if ours won the fight, otherwise, we were also looser if they had lost the fight. If they lost, we would devise ingenious methods to make them better fighter, change the training methods or their diet. All else fail, we would go into the bushes and try to capture another fighting spider, in the hope of discovering a brilliant fighting star.
We see the winner as the conqueror, worthy of care, good food and rigorous training. Feeding them red ant was a no-go, they would developed scratching action; they behaved more panicky, meek and less robust when meeting their opponent. A huge house fly would serve as a more potent meal, energise them, and strengthen them. Training could be sparing with a lesser opponent.

Fighting was a male spider affair, we had hardly seen female fights, and they seem disinterested. The primordial instinct, of gaining a wild increase in strength and fighting dexterity, was enticing the male with the female. It had an immediate impact on the psychology of the male spider, we had thought so. We learned how to ‘fuck spider’. It sounds so obscene. If someone asked you to go fuck spider, he meant, buzz off, go entertain yourself with that meagre ritual, a derogatory terms. Yes, it was a ritual, albeit a sexual one, between a male and female spider. The person fucking the spiders, is both the audience of sort, a pimp with the desire to win, the match maker, a warp mental that peeps at sex show and the organizer of pornographic show. Well, when a nerdy student saw it, it was science and he would be posting that eternal question and possibly turn it into a project, operating them with minuscule utensil, searching their dead body, imaging that flow of fluid from one area to another, postulating their reasons and affirming his thesis. However, this seems a lesser joys for those raw savage survivors, who held on to the spider trend, we preferred the enactment. In amazement, perhaps some would imagine the electrifying effect, that of between their father and mother, for the adventurous they might start wondering and enacting the same ritual upon their perceived lovers. Yes, they would affirm that they were electrically charged and vigorised, there was an invincible potency; they felt strong, and savage. Was it a myth? Later, in life we do realised that though it invigorate, it tired you out, you need rest, only after rest, deep sleep, you would awake with renew confidence and positivism. Another, human legend, that we experience, and would not discount its impact, with male chauvinism, we would deny all science and affirm its impact, it is potent and we need them! Hurray to great sex!

When we first saw it, we were enthralled, questioning, interpreting and creatively verbalising the exactitude of the male being charged up by the female, as we could see the lifting forelimbs, bend in a ‘C’ shape, vibrating in ecstasy, as he touched the head of the female. Only the looser got to fuck, a concession, a sexual booster, to gain sexual prowess, turning them into that raw brutal energy needed in all fights. He went into a trance, vibrating, moved backward, then forward again, touching, vibrating, and the pimp would intercept his desire, and stopped short, disallowing the completion of the ritual. Now entered, the male opponent, it could be a rematch, which he had lost before, but with this prior sexual ritual, we saw renew vigour in his fight. We had seen a looser, became a winner, after the ritual, affirming this age old myth that sex instil instance power, nature is pervasive, we see similarity in human. For those that constantly win the fight, we would not allow them to mate; their youth and vigour would gain strength and last longer if they are célèbre. The Chinese did the same to rooster by removing the male reproductive organ, the rooster would grow bigger and the feathers are more colourful and vibrant. If someone invented a machine to sterilise the fighting spider there will be those game enough to try the machine.

Here is an age old believe, spanning a few thousand years of Chinese wisdom, the modality of the spider’s sexual ritual orchestrated by the human, after gazing at it and asking long enough, we found the answer. Where did the increase in strength come from? From his anger? Spider do get angry? Spider have emotion? So let’s get him angry and may be he could fight better? So the denial of sexual completion got him angry? Let him be hungry and due to the lack of food, he could be more desperate and angry too, but then where would the strength come from if he had no food? Would he fight better, when food level is low? It had never been the method of choice compared to the sexual ritual. The male spider had multiple orgasms, each time his forelegs vibrated in the air, so we believe, and he believed too. However, he was prevented from ejaculating; the palps would be charged up, with immense oom.  The same energy was to be released in the fight. Here is where the similarity with the Taoist and Hindu sacred practise, that the sperms contain such immense energy and life force that it should not be released and be wasted during the human sexual engagement. They should be preserved, that is, ejaculation is bad. In fact, without ejaculation, the male can through various means and practise, redirect the energy back into the body, re-assimilated, resulting in an increase in the health of the male, in the same process, he could have multiple orgasm, longer sexual engagement and it would be much more fulfilling for the female. Could the same potency happen, as could the spider? Would the image of the fighting spider, or any photograph for that matter could, with certainty, had that potency to continuously arouse emotion from its viewer? You would want to capture it, present it, and conserve it, create that potential in stasis.

The sexual ritual was history in the collective memory of that generation. If you asked someone, and they get elated about the fighting spider, you would know that they would be in their late 40s and 50s.

‘The Injured King’, is a tribune to the great spirit of the fighter. He stood high and mighty, without fear of certainty or the unknown, he faced up to challenges as they would come to him. A few blades of leave are adequate for him to call his own and provide him the food he required. He roamed and ruled over them. He fend off any invader even if he would loose his limbs, and he did, two limbs were gone, but his posture of raised head and cephalothorax, shown him to be triumphant and the denial of his handicap. He walked in great strike, exhibiting none of the sign of weakness. I had not known of his handicapped for many years, until I scrutinised these images of him, that I realised this significant. Would you rather be an injured King or an handicapped? Most of us always see our handicaps and forgot our greatness, attributing inability to them. Stand up, I would say, face the challenge with bravery and naivety, the same would be true for me and you. STAND UP.

Cartier-Bresson

The decisive moment, you need people to pose. He found those moment. Discovery rhythm and life.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzgLQw3oBOI&feature=related
10 parts

Richard Avedon

Richard Avedon, from a fame fashion photographer to a serious artist documenting common people and then famous people with pure white background. Amazing work and story.

youtube

Diane Arbus

She was born of a rich family, so was the prince that founded Buddhism, unwary of the sufferings and struggle of life, when she was young. She grew up, married and divorced, liberating her to seek an alternative life, that of a photographer of freak. She love their story, her picture tells their story. Sometimes, an inert sense of existential nihilism, could be the reason for unhappiness with a rich materialistic life, overcoming that struggle to understand reality.

Link : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Arbus,

youtube:

1. A great documentary, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKXwCctBLQU

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKXwCctBLQU

Annie Leibovitz

Since I was into shooting Portraits of Arthropods, learning and understanding the works of Annie Leibovitz, once the cheif photographer of Rolling Stone, then the photographer for Vanity Fair, and later a photographer of her own projects, could shed some light on my work on Arthropods.
When she was shooting for Rolling Stone, the pictures were the moments, she had less to prepare, a lot of working between her subjects and her, the environment plays a lot, so the images turn out being spontaneous and seemingly contained more truth in them. The image of Ono and John was simple and emotionally charged. An icon of his time, a legend that fall for his love, a sense of the powerful needing the comfort of the weaker sex that was repulsively cold and closed, where John was powerfully naked and susceptible.
As a Vanity Fair photographer, she had to cater to the viewers, the patrons, there are more to grapple and resolve. She had to conceptualize, see the image before they were taken. There was a need for public acceptance as compare to the Rolling Stone, there was a need for acceptance by the main stream. Rebellion and having a sense of freedom were not the rule. She gave up something, freedom, and rehabilitation could have been instrumental for her need to gain mainstream acceptance, as her days of drugs was seen as social ill. She remade herself. She had shown resilience to come back and she did.
However, one part of her that was lost, was to be re-waken by Susan Songtag, her very good friend that was instrumental in reaffirming the destiny of photography, to tell the dimension of truth and reality, it brought some eternal meaning to her work.

Links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Leibovitz,
youtube :

1. An interview with Annie Liebovittz by TIMES, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRhbqtV6RcA, 


2. AB shoot Marie Antoinette http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNyIUlra9LU, 


3. Great shots by AB http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET8tOfyWYLg&feature=related,

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRhbqtV6RcA&feature=fvw

Wolf Spider, white spider and the Giant Tarantula

A small version of the wolf spider, 

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yf6_qDoCUu0&feature=popt00us02

It was really awe struck watch this video where the author shot a pair of wolf spider for a few days until the spiderling were hatched. Staying in the wall crevice and not having enough food, the female spider ate her partner, which the spiderlings seen sticking on the back of her cephalothorax. This would probably add to the errieness of spiders. Most people, especially female hated spiders. I was horrified seeing the partner beeing eaten up.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sLs_sQJKa8&NR=1

White spider being filmed and shown in BBC, very interesting and cool to watch how the spider moved in the dark and hid beneath his burrow.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LmyyXcE6rw&NR=1

Spider hunting down a rat. Only the Giant Tarantula could do that, however, their bites were reported to be non-deadly.

Appreciation of the MicroWorld, Talk

I was so glad that many had turned up despite the unceasing drizzle and intermittent heavy downpour. Edwin and gang had helped to organize the sound system, the projector, survey forms, and tea and snack. Thanks so much. David helped to shoot the photographs shown here; Wai Meng helped to remind those RSVP in the Facebook and Brimzone helped to manage my youngest son and the photo album; Shuh Fang helped to record my talk; Buwei introduced me; and FotoHub printed and sponsored the 2m tall poster. It was a great session with so many people attending. We hope to organize another talk with technical specific on shooting insects and spiders in existing light.

Poster for the talk

Here are the poster created for the Talk on "Appreciation of the MicroWorld"



 

Figthing Spider

These are the fighting spider, they belong to the jumping spider group, Salticidae, if I did not remembered wrongly.

Once my inquisitive elder son, caught 4 spiders and one ant, put them all together in a single container. The last survival was the fighting spider. Seems cruel, but this is reality, some animal are there for the survival of others. We human kill a lot of animals to keep alive. Not every son of ours would listen to us, they love to explore and experiment. Don’t we do that in the school and research laboratory? We, human, do that all the time in the laboratory and we call it science.

Ever heard of 'fucking spider'. Here was what I saw when I was young, children fight spider and fuck spider.

You must have a pair of spiders, one male and the other female. Now compare the 2 spiders, the one with a bigger abdomen and a non-swollen palp is the female. Now first let the female out of the box or cage, blow at her, she will draw all her legs in and stop moving, now put one of your thumb over her abdomen, she is now immobilized. Now you let out the male spider. This is when we become spectators, do nothing and watch. The male spider will do the pre-sex dance. Then slowly approach the female spider and gets electrified.

Why do people fuck spider. Good question.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B62TF2hXmzI

[mbs slideshow=1][gallery link="file" columns="4" orderby="ID"]

Talk - Appreciation of the Micro World

We finally got down to holding a talk at the Thomson Community Centre (TCC) with the help of the Video Club Committee, Edwin, both David and the members. Thanks also to PF for helping with proofreading the flyer. We are delighted that it will be held on the 30th of August, at the TCC. The Flyer for the talk can be found below, and we hope to meet all photographic enthusiasts, their family and friends at the session.

Download PDF here flyer download

Arthropod conservation

Shouldn't we have insects and spider conservation too? The Arthropod is the largest group of animal as compared to human and the four-legged animal. But what are the strong reasons to conserve them? Well the same reasons we conserved the Panda, I believe. So why aren't they given the same weigh? Their size ultimately and our lack of understanding about them brought about our neglect. So are we going to care about them soon? I doubt so.

Ladybird

Winter had to be over by late May, the weather was getting cooler and warmest at noon. We had driven almost one and a half hours from San Mateo of San Francisco to Muir Woods, the only Red Wood Forest in Mill Valley. It is well known for the 1000 years Red Wood trees. We hope to spot some beetles in the forest, but we did not find them. We turned some rotten trunk and found multi-legged critters with dark green exoskeleton. We were however awed by the tall redwood trees that rose more than 80 meters into the gorgeous blue sky. The forest is well maintained in its natural form.

We were searching for one particular family of beetle, the Coccinellidae, commonly known as ladybirds, was particularly well received by the farmers in passing decades. They were once believed to be the saviors sent by Mary to answer the prayers of the framers to rid their crops of aphids and other pest, hence, the name ladybird, the bird of Mary.

Children nursery rhyme had been written about ladybirds which was sang to help them vacate from the plant after the farmers had harvested their crops and were about to burn the plant remains as fertilizer.

"Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home,

Your house is on fire, your children do roam.

Except little Nan, who sits in a pan,

Weaving gold laces as fast as she can."

The next day we took off to the Golden Bridge Park, searched for hours in the park but we did not find any beetle too. San Francisco is home to many vineyards. A visit to the vineyard confirmed that no insects are welcome in the vineyard, as their squashed body during fermentation may degrade the quality of the wine. We did not find this beetle after a casual look around in the vineyard.

However, on our last day in San Francisco, we located one in the lawn of our resident. We were exhilarated and took many images of it. Though ladybird are inspirational for their form, colour and movement especially during their launch into flight, when their shield separated and the transparent wings fluttered gently lifting them angelically through space, they would secrete a yellow fluid with foul odor when felt threatened or squashed. This fluid can stain walls and draperies. Large aggregation of ladybirds also produces an undesirable smell. For some hypersensitive people they may trigger asthma in them. We had learned that the beetle can bite but we had not experienced it when handling ladybird. However, we could feel their claws scratching on the surface of our skin.

Asian ladybird, the Harlequin Ladybird, Harmonia axyridis, was introduced into America and European as a biological pest control against aphids and other pest in the early 1970s. Harlequin is a ferocious cannibalistic insect, which was seen as an alternative to insecticide and as an ecologically friendlier alternative.

Through industrialization and urbanization, vast farmland had been converted into a suburban dwelling area and the food for these Asian beetles had vanished. They invaded the gardens and tried to hibernate in houses during the winter months. They can be found in wall crevices, wooden furniture and bookshelves. For their lack of use, they are now nuisance to home dwellers and they endanger the local ladybird population both in America and United Kingdom. Somehow, we human had spoken so eloquently about bringing nature into our houses and living with nature, but we shrieked at the mere sight of them. We use insecticides to kill them and vacuum cleaners to suck them all out. Being with nature is easy said then done. There is a certain irony in this romanticism with nature.

In the United Kingdom, there was an organization set up to monitor ladybird, http://www.ladybird-survey.org/. In particular survey was carried out on Harlequin Ladybird, which the website http://www.harlequin-survey.org listed it as "the most invasive ladybird on earth". There were maps illustrating the spread of this ladybird, like a benign growth slowly engulfing from South-East towards the northeast. This mapping is a collaboration among various organizations. They are: the University of Cambridge, the Anglia Ruskin University and the Biological Records Centre. Till 2008, they had spread as far as north of Glasgow and reaching Durham. It was believed that they arrived in Essex from Netherlands, where they had been used as a biological pest control. However due to their voracious appetite they had out competed the locate ladybird on their staple food, aphids, reducing the local ladybird population significantly. They may in some instances eat up the local ladybird too. In the autumn of 2006, a swarm of ladybirds descended in the cloud on the Isle of Wight, covering crops, windows and even footpaths. Residents were horrified and Asian Ladybird reputation declined and they became a pest.

Dr Majerus,

"And there are lacewing, hoverfly larvae and even butterflies that are suffering because this thing is eating all the food, and it is also eating as secondary food butterfly eggs, and other ladybirds and lacewing larvae."

Harlequin Ladybird is identified by their various colours such as yellow-orange, orange-red, red or Black. They could be spotless or with up to 21 black or orange-red spots. They most commonly have 15-21 black spots in UK. They vary from 6-8mm in size.

Of course, some nurseries in America still sell ladybird to garden owners who are health conscious and detest the use of insecticide. These Ladybirds were kept in refrigerator and release to the garden when needed. Ladybird helps to rid aphids and other pest in their gardens. Ladybird starts to hibernate around October and November, through winter. They were harvested during the hibernating months where thousands migrated to certain valley and hid themselves beneath dead leaves and logs. For a good week these beetle harvesters could easily earned a thousand dollars each. However, the exact spots for harvesting them are kept secret among the harvesters and their territories are jealously guarded.

Ladybirds are well known for their promiscuity. Nine out of ten London Ladybird had STD, Sexually Transmitted Disease. They suffered a fungal STD, which is mild and benign. Another mite STD suffered by Eastern Europe Ladybird could render the female sterile. This mite could be a solution for the control of Harlequin Ladybird in America and UK. However, this should be well researched and controlled before another form of undesired effects breaks out. We Asian were quite puzzled about their population in Asia. We had not noticed their crime among our properties.

Crab Spider and his victim

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Arachnida
Order: Araneae
Superfamily: Thomisoidea
Family: Thomisidae

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hymenoptera
Family: Formicidae
Subfamily: Formicinae
Tribe: Oecophyllini
Genus: Oecophylla

Here is a crab spider that is feasting on the red ant. I would have you believe that I stumble upon this occasion by chance and real hard work, scouting from flowers to flowers, my persistence was rewarded with this find. Death emancipating from the starring pairs of eyes, reminds you, makes you feel sorry for his death. There again, you felt helpless as this is part of nature.
But what if, I tell you that the ant was caught, injured and fed to the crab spider so that he can have a good feast. This was done in the moment when I was overwhelmed by the long wait, together with the crab spider, that I took pity on her and started to give her some helps. Would you blame me for my mischief and accuse me for my sin?
That was not the case, instead, after spending many days under the scorching sun, watching the crab spider, at the same bushes of yellow flower, I had grew more and more impatient, for my desire to have a great image, I had hatched a plan to kill the ant and sent him to the crab spider. The weaver ant was chosen because of their abundance, their irritable nuisance, and their almost translucent red, all that would make a good compliment to the saturated yellow. On his death bed, his eyes starred into me and detested. The innocent crab spider was framed for his death.
Who would really know what actually happened between the three of us, the spider, the ant and me. Would you have another story to tell from this single imagery freezed in digital moment?
Death is such a poignant imagery that someone has to be held responsible. The pair of eyes stared into me and you, piercing into our heart and conscience. Conscience is one huge human creation that had its seed when we were young. Does nature has conscience?
Here are the series of images created over a period of about a week.

Back from COMA

A friend who return from COMA mentioned "Umberto too complex mate. I fall asleep each time I try Name of the Rose LOL. Havent tried Nietzche yet. Right now I am into reading history and quotes. Strange but nothing new actually satisfies..why is that?"

It got me thinking.

Well, you need to get out and see the world, and may be write your own observations. That is a challenge and it is great satisfaction, reading your own work. Get a blog for a start. I get uneasy if everyday is a routine for me. I always look for new ways of doing things, opportunity in trying out, and implement them. Challenge and an experiential life is what you should look for, after coming back from a COMA.
A lot of time we get lazy; we stopped analyzing; we stopped experimenting; we only looks for what everyone is doing and adopt it, experiencing the repetition, the familiarity, and we told ourselves this is the world; we forgot the dream we had when we were younger, in the university; we stop dreaming; we stop realizing the dream.
Life is fragile. Another of my good friend had been diagnosed for leukemia. So feel energize each day when we wake up breathing.
Life is nothing so serious, in fact ironical, if you had come back from near death.
I am going Philippines! See the world. Shoot those happy faces.

Camera for sale, upgrading to better system

Following are the cameras equipment for sale, I am upgrading my system:

1. Canon 350D with lens Kit lens 18 - 55mm f3.5-5.6 - $638 SOLD
   


2. Canon 400D body with 50mm lens good for portrait only - $600


3. Lumix G1 with zoom lens 14-45mm.- $850

Contact number 98150357











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Contact number 98150357

Strip the Canon 350 bare

Stripping the digital camera to understand their component.

I am still finding ways to get my InSectMatrix camera made. I hope to collaborate with those who are keen to help realised the camera to shoot VR insect images.

I had been thinking of how to construct a camera that could snap VR photos of Insect with a single click. Anyway, I took my old Digital Canon 350 and strip it bare to check out the construction and the various parts. Here are all the photographs and my guest of what they do. Just some common sense. It anyone interest in the InsectMatrix please email me at:

See the strip here

InsectHunter

Budi Santoso

The Robberfly Experience - article contributed by Budi Santoso

I started digital photography in late 2006 as a hobby. I shot anything then. A year later I found that shooting insects was more challenging, especially close up with macro lenses.
Sneaking up near the bugs is an exciting game. Getting close to it without making them fly away is not the end. In very limited time,  efforts to get sharp focus, good composition and lighting have to be achieved, as well. Only when those factors are completely drawn altogether as one,  I would feel the unexplainable excitement. That’s just the beginning of sensational feeling. Similar excitement occurs when the lens successfully reveals the unseen beauty of the insects, especially the eyes.
Initially, my favorite bug was dragonfly. I love its multifaceted eyes. However, later, I found the robber fly (Asilidae Family) by luck.
It was an early morning. As usual, I went out to the park and tried to photograph dragonflies; they might still be asleep. No luck. By chance, I saw bugs which I thought were mating. Slowly I went closer, observed what they were by using my Zuiko Digital 40-150mm + Raynox DCR-250. This is what I got:

From then on, whenever I shoot, I always try to find a robber fly enjoying its meal. Most interesting experience is when I saw with my own eyes how this creature catches another flying insect in mid air…so quick! I can’t help but be fascinated by their effectiveness of seizing and capturing its preys.
Some say that robber fly does not catch every insects flying close to it. Instead, it observes the potential prey to see if it fits his appetite. When he decides it is suitable, then it flies out quickly and grabs the prey firmly with its long spiny legs, squeezing it tightly against its own body, and at the same time jabbing the strong proboscis into the prey’s back, injecting the neurotoxic saliva to paralyze the prey, then carried the prey back to its perch to enjoy the meal.
From what I’ve observed and captured using my camera, robber fly eats flying bugs like honey bees, moth,  damselfly, beetles, green stinkbug (Nezara viridula), Japanese beetle, slender rice bug, sand wasp (Microbembex sp.).

(pic 2 Eating Sand Wasp)

(pic 2 Eating Sand Wasp)
and the biggest prey which I saw he can eat is :dragonfly!!

(pic 3 Eating dragonfly)

It's amazing that he can catch a prey which is much longer and bigger!!
Robber flies are cannibal. The female robber fly sometimes rejects the amorous seduction of the male, seizing and eating him instead!

(pic 4 cannibal)

Below is quite interesting scene. On top is a robber fly eating Sand Wasp (Microbembex sp. See picture 2 for the close up shot taken from opposite angle), while a few inches below, a female robber fly cannibalizes the male (pic 4 is the close up shot)

(pic 5 cannibal + sand wasp)

But not all males fail, some guys still have the luck ☺

(pic 6 mating)

Robberfly is not immortal. One Sunday morning, I found a robber fly enjoying his breakfast. After several shots, the rain fell. So I ran into my house. About 10 minutes later, the rain stopped. I ran back to the park to continue my shot. Of course he wasn't there anymore. Driven by curiosity, I observed every inch of the park when suddenly my eyes caught something moving. It was a spider net. There was a spider just finished spinning the prey into a roll of white silk. Yes, it's the robber fly still with the prey trapped in a spider web.

(pic 7 trapped by spider)

(pic 8 trapped by spider - crop)

Where to find them
Robber fly can be found where other flying insects are available, such as flower parks (bees/wasps and other flying insects usually come to this place).
How to get close
I can’t describe it better than this article. What I’d like to add is that location (and sometimes: time) plays quite an important role, as well.
The behaviour of insects may differ depends on the location and time. My favorite location is a small park in front of my house. Children usually chase at each other, biking, playing with the parents, etc. This environment makes the insects accustomed to the people and the noisy sound, so they are easier to get close. I said “easier” because it still needs patience and practice to get really close to it.

(Pic 9, In the Park)

My favorite time is from 7 – 9.30 AM because during this period the light is great, not so harsh. However, I sometimes shoot up to around 12:00 as I caught them mating three times at around 11:30 ☺
Camera Setting
I use Olympus E-500, Zuiko Digital 40-150mm lens+ Raynox DCR-250 (close up lens) or Zuiko Digital 50mm F2.0 + Raynox DCR-250 (sometimes without DCR-250 if the object is quite big or I don’t need high magnification)
Frankly, it was quite difficult to use DCR-250 for the first time, but once you accustomed to it, it is very easy to shoot using dedicated macro lens at 1:1 magnification ☺
Here’s what I do when using ZD 40 -150mm + DCR-250

1. Use manual focus. Move the camera back and forth slowly until getting the sharpest focus, then, press the shutter gently.
2. Minimum focal length is around 40-45mm. Shorter than this may create vignetting – edge darkening (just try yourself to find the minimum focal length of your camera).
3. The longer the focal length, the higher the magnification, and the shallower the DoF.
4. As for Aperture, I usually use F5.6 – F13 because this is what I think the best range of my lens. (If I use ZD50mm, I may use it up to F 2.8 and stacked the shots using a CombineZP freeware or CS4 to increase the DOF. Here is an example of stacking result from 10 shots)
5. I always use manual mode to get full control of aperture and speed.
6. Always handhold the camera for better movement.
7. To make the camera steady, I always find something to lean on, either wall, tree, fence, or just anything near me. If not they are not available, I put one or both of my elbows like a tripod (or bipod) either on the ground, my laps, or anywhere.
8. Last but not least: a lot of practices and great patience.

So far, here’s the shot I love the most:

Pic 10 Robberfly@breakfast

Taken with the Olympus E-500, ZD 40 -150mm + DCR-250, F13 1/30 handheld.
As you see from the Exif data, the most challenging part of this shot is steadiness of the camera. Why did I set the speed so low? Because the light was not bright enough while I wanted to have good DoF. It was quite fortunate that the robber fly stayed still so that my effort of lying on the wet grass with both elbows supporting my camera paid off.
Hope you can benefit from this sharing and I appreciate any inputs from all of you.
www.flickr.com/photos/stboed