Ladybug Invasion

Okay, it's time to dig back into the archives for a quick update.  These photographs were taken last fall after getting home one afternoon and finding that the building had been invaded by ladybugs.  This one in particular seemed rather relaxed and enjoyed posing.  These photographs have been sitting in my website folder since January, but two little incidents finally got me to post them.  First, we had a similar invasion two weeks ago, though none of the bugs were as photogenic as this one.  The second reason needs a bit of explaining.  While visiting my parents over the Thanksgiving holiday, I came upon a ladybug that had gotten into their house.  I managed to position it onto my finger with the intention of letting it free outside, when I felt a little sting.  The little thing had bitten me.  I'd never known ladybugs to bite before, but it reminded me of these photographs.  The first one in particular.  I'm not sure how well is shows at the small size I use to post my photographs on this website, but when it was blown up to 10" x 15" for my exhibition back in March, one of the things that struck me were the teeth.  It's not a surprise I felt a bit of a pinch with a mouth full of teeth like this bug has.  Getting back to the photograph, another thing that I really liked was the reflection of the ladybug.  We had just painted the railings no more than two weeks before this photograph had been taken and the fresh paint provided a nice reflective surface.  I liked the photograph so much that I cropped it both vertically and horizontally.  It's the vertical version that ended up being put on display.  The photograph was taken at f/4, 1/125sec, ISO 400 at 60mm.  Here's a third photograph that I also took that afternoon.

f/4, 1/125sec, ISO 400at 60mm

The reflection shows a bit more on the third photograph, but I should have probably used a smaller aperture in order to keep more of the face in focus.  Lesson learned.  Shoot with different apertures and also keep from being bitten by bugs in the future.