Is a butterfly an insect? Yes. Butterflies are insects — their anatomy is comprised of a head thorax and abdomen, three pairs of walking legs, antennae and a pair of wings.

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This is my 100th post since I started this blog on October 11, 2007. It has been a journey punctuated by rapid burst of entries and several long intervals in between.

This photo of a dragon fly was taken today at the Butterfly Park in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Heeding my own advice on taking photos, I’ve taken dozens of shots but alas, the weather was not helpful. The sky was overcast and the rain came soon enough.

To commemorate my 100th entry, I’m posting here all the usable shots out of several dozens I’ve taken at the park before the rain came.

This one looks like a dead leaf. I almost missed it.

That’s about it, folks. Hope the photos have given you some visual treats.

Posted in Blog, Flower Macro, Insect Macro, Nature, Plants Macro 5 Comments »

When I was small dragonfly was my favourite insect. The other was ant. Somehow I got the idea that the inventor of helicopter got their inspirations from observing a dragonfly.

But I had not been kind to both of my favourite insects. For instance, I used to attach strings to dragonflies to make dragonfly kites.

I would run into the open field with my hand holding the other end of the strings and the dragonflies, in their attempt to break free, would flutter their wings and float in the air.

If my parents found out however, they would scold me and told me to respect all living things and not to harm them.

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Some people find the close-up image of a fly, or other household insects like cockroach, disturbing.

As for me, it depends on what the fly was doing when the picture was taken. I guess, this two macro shots of a tame one perching on a wooden plank wouldn’t be a problem.

But then again, you might find the shallow depth-of-field, disturbing.

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I’ve only seen this species of moth once, and I was lucky to have my camera with me. This one does not look like your ordinary moth but I know it is a moth. Don’t ask me how did I know. I just knew this is a moth.

Anyway, this is the only picture I manage to take of the moth. If you like, you can also see interesting pictures of strange-winged moths here.

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Ants. Yes, ants. What about ants? A lot, if you ask me.

For one thing, with point-and-shoot camera it’s almost impossible to get a sharp picture of ants without firing the flash because they kept on moving and their bodies are made of tiny parts.

For another, flashlight freezes the subject nicely, but it could also spoil it all the same. As evidence in the photos here, direct flashlights burns out a picture.

It makes close up pictures look flat and two-dimensional. I think I need to get myself a flashgun.

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When everything else fails — or when you think you have photographed everything — look under the shrubs.

That’s what I do when I go for an outing, when I thought there was nothing more to photograph and it was time to go home.

But this doesn’t mean you have to deliberately rummaged into the shrubs or turn stones over just to have a look what was beneath them so that we can take their pictures. That would be counter-productive.

I hold the view that as a photographer — taking pictures of nature at their natural setting, or any other subjects for that matter — it is our job to try and minimise disturbance to the subjects which have given us the pictures.

Here’s an example of life under the shrubs. I took this last week at the Memorial Park, Singapore, just opposite Swissotel The Stamford, the tallest hotel in Southeast Asia.

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One of the most dramatic macro shots I’ve taken, is this picture of an ant hauling a dead fly.

But it was not easy to frame this shot as the ant was bent on getting away with the priced trophy. To take this shot, I set the Canon PowerShot G6 to super macro recording mode, set the burst mode to “H” for high-speed (but still very slow at 1.8fps), set the dial to “P” for programme and set my mind, also to “P” for prayer.

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