Portrait of a grasshopper

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Portrait of a grasshopper

September 19, 2012 by Mike Powell

It’s only a grasshopper, not an exotic insect, but I really like the way that his portrait turned out.

The grasshopper’s pose suggests that he is ready for action and his slightly cocked head helps to give him personality. I was able to get sufficient depth of field and sharpness by using an F8 aperture, ISO 200, and 1/200 sec and by moving in a bit from the far end of my telephoto zoom (I was at 229mm of a 55-250mm lens). Both the foreground and the background are simple and are made up of a minimum of colors, mostly green and brown. The day was mostly cloudy, so the shadows are soft.

All these elements seemed to work in harmony and I was able to produce this nice, open-air portrait of a grasshopper.

Grasshopper portrait (click for a higher-resolution view)

Posted in Bugs, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife | Tagged Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, grasshopper, Huntley Meadows Park | 4 Comments

4 Responses

on September 19, 2012 at 10:58 am | Reply caleephotography

Really nice portrait, Mike! Love the soft colors, and it looks like he’s just turned around to say something. 🙂
- on September 19, 2012 at 7:00 pm | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Thanks. I think you and I are on the same wavelength. (We seem to have similar thoughts about photos we see or take.)
on September 19, 2012 at 10:59 am | Reply New Hampshire Gardener

Excellent shot!
on September 19, 2012 at 5:39 pm | Reply naturesnippets

There’s SO many colors in the picture. Just amazing!