One question I am often asked is how I manage to spot all the bugs I shoot. It really is just a matter of training your eye. The more you start to look for the smaller creatures around you, the more you start to find them.
One way to train your eye is to find a small area of vegetation, say one square metre, and see how many insects you can find and photograph. You will be surprised after a little while just how many are there.
All of the shots in today’s post were taken in one clump of weeds by the Wey Navigation towpath. The photo shoot took about 15 minutes in total. In fact, I found several other insects in the same clump.
Why not give it a try and share the results on your blog and/or in comments here?
My Internet is down and I am blogging on 3G, which is expensive, so please forgive me if I am a little slow in replying or visiting your blogs until the pesky thing is fixed.
Focused Moments 
I’ve found you need a great deal of patience shooting bugs. They are usually moving around all the time. You always get such great shots, so you must be really patient.
Thanks. It helps if you get to know their habits a little bit. Then you can predict what they might do next. For example, I am beginning to be able to tell when a ladybird is getting ready to take off. I am in touch with my inner geek π
Awesome. Yeah, I’ll just have to spend more time with it. You are obviously quite experienced when it comes to bug shots!
It is a weird but strangely satisfying hobby π
Love these pics π I recently got a whole batch of shots of an inchworm and his antics, and you are right, the longer I watched him, the better I could predict what he was going to do next!
Thank you. Have you posted your inch worm shots? I will pop over and take a look. π
Thank you Rachael – yes I did post the inchworm pics π
Found them! Lovely π
Love the pictures, but also like the title of this post very much! Life in one square metre doesn’t seem confined at all: it’s still colourful, detailed, and makes you wanna gaze at it.
Thank you. Yes, I agree. I love the way macro work has opened my eyes to a hidden world.
Wonderful, Rachel. These are great macro shots.
Thanks, Gracie. I am glad you like them π
Ha, YOU slow down your blogging? You are definitely the most productive blogger I know ;).
Yesterday I gave myself an hour and a half to walk to work at the “hell school”. Went along the river going there and back. The banks are a riot of flowering “weeds” that have completely transformed the look and feel of an area I found really dingy and depressing in Winter. And many times as I lined up a shot of hollyhocks, for example, against a backdrop of apartment blocks or rice paddies, there’d be a bug halfway up the stalk, perfectly profiled. Also several times I’ve noticed a little semi-transparent spider like the one in your next post perched on the petals of the same type of yellow flower, waiting for a visitor.
I tried, and you can SEE them if you look hard, but I’m really regretting the lack of a macro of late!
Go get one. You know you deserve it. I’d love to see some Korean bugs.