Is it just my imagination or do the eyes of this spider look like a smiley face to you too?
Eager to use my new macro lens, I went searching yesterday in my neighbors’ garden for subjects and came upon a tiny orange spider, which I have not yet been able to identify.
The spider was initially suspended in midair, but climbed up an invisible silken thread as I approached and took refuge in the shadow of white flower.
I boldly (or foolishly) tried photographing the spider handheld, but the images were blurry. Eventually I put the camera on my tripod and did my best to focus manually. For some shots, I used my pop-up flash to add a bit more light. Of course, it turned the background black, but I think that works for this shot.
In the original shot, the spider was upside down, but I decided it looked better when I rotated the image 180 degrees. I am fascinated with the multiple eyes of spiders. There seem to a lot of different eye patterns in the different species of spider—a macro lens tends to make me look more closely at these kinds of details.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Mike Powell 