One of my fellow photographers pointed out this cool little crab spider on some Queen Anne’s Lace (Daucus carota) during a photo jaunt to Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in nearby Vienna, Virginia this past Saturday.
In this first shot, my favorite, the spider seemed to be expressing frustration that his prey had escaped his grasp (or simply wanted to show me his awesome biceps pose). Who knew that spiders have biceps?
Initially I tried to photograph the spider looking down at it, but I had trouble maintaining a steady pose and my shots were blurry. I decided to kneel down and get at eye level with the spider, looking across the plane of the flower, and that seemed to work a bit better. These shots look like they were done with flash, but the EXIF data shows a shutter speed of 1/320, which is higher than the synch speed of my flash, so these were actually done with natural light, with some exposure compensation dialed in.
The second shot, which preceded the first one in time, shows the spider trying to capture a small insect (I think).
The little insect starts to run away.
In vain, the spider crawled after the small insect, but it was too late. When I left the spider, it was at the edge of the flower, looking off into the distance, pondering perhaps what might have been, thinking about the one that got away.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Mike Powell 
love the first shot the most too. great!
Thanks. Some people find spiders to be scarey, but I like them (at least the little non-threatening ones).
Nothing worse than missing lunch.. 😉
Excellent shots..
It will be quite a dramatic story when the spider retells it later on – not to mention the insect’s version.
I thought like Lyle. The one that got away…
Your shots are really awesome, I enjoyed the action you captured.
You’re lucky that you saw it. I usually see these in photos I’ve taken but rarely in person. They seem to be camouflage experts.
Great session, Mike. My personal favorite is the last one. It really pays to get down on a level plane with them. Shooting down is often great for ID purposes, but eye-level is usually so much more personal and fascinating.
I know that you are someone who has been in a situation like this with a spider, so I really appreciate your insights, Gary. I was shooting that day with a friend, who spotted the spider, and it was nice that she was not at all bothered when I took a pretty good amount of time to get a lot of shots of the spider.
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