A story of beauty and obsession
So here's what happened. One day I saw a spider and I decided to take a photo of it. And I liked it, I liked the way the light caught the web, and made its legs glow, and the way the trees in the background were out of focus.
A few days later I saw another spider. This was not an uncommon thing, living in the bush. Spiders are everywhere. And some of them are really pretty. And occasionally deadly, but I have never been scared of spiders I can see. Walking into a spider's web and not knowing where the spider was or what type it is, now that's terrifying. But a spider I can see poses no great threat. Except the ones that jump, but they're rare.
So I took another photo, and I liked that one too.
A few days later I saw another spider. This was not an uncommon thing, living in the bush. Spiders are everywhere. And some of them are really pretty. And occasionally deadly, but I have never been scared of spiders I can see. Walking into a spider's web and not knowing where the spider was or what type it is, now that's terrifying. But a spider I can see poses no great threat. Except the ones that jump, but they're rare.
So I took another photo, and I liked that one too.
I'm not going to lie, putting my fingers that close to a redback was a little bit terrifying. I tried a few different approaches, most of which involved trembling hands and terrible shots. I ended up just sticking the phone as close as I could and clicking a lot. Most of them were blurry and unrecongnisable, but this one turned out really sweet. It's a bit grainy, but undeniably dramatic.
Which led me to the conclusion that the key to taking good photos is to take a lot of photos. I never forgot that.
Which led me to the conclusion that the key to taking good photos is to take a lot of photos. I never forgot that.
I started taking photos of creepy crawlies whenever and wherever I saw them.
Some were alive, others were dead. And sometimes I watched them die...
It became an obsession. Not the killing, I tried to avoid that if I could. I was obsessed with taking beautiful pictures of tiny critters.
You see at this time, I was living in Halls Gap, a beautiful little town in the middle of the Grampians (Gariwerd) National Park. I ran a motel there, and the thing about running a motel is that you're not just sitting behind a desk all day waiting for people to turn up. It involves a lot of walking around, and cleaning stuff, and fixing stuff, and mowing things, and carrying things.
And noticing things.
Now I'm not saying my motel had a bug problem. I'm saying that it was my job to notice bugs before anyone else did, and remove them so they didn't. I just added an extra step between notice bug and remove bug: photograph bug.
If they were outside, I left them alone. I still got the shot, but I left them alone. Unless they were the nasty, bitey sort of critters that scare people, in which case I usually erred on the side guest comfort. A golden orb spider can stay where it is, a redback has to go. If you want to evolve to be all poisonous and painful, you live with the consequences.
Also flies, fuck them. For environmental reasons, I preferred the swatter to the bug spray, and there's an aesthetic benefit to that approach as well...
You see at this time, I was living in Halls Gap, a beautiful little town in the middle of the Grampians (Gariwerd) National Park. I ran a motel there, and the thing about running a motel is that you're not just sitting behind a desk all day waiting for people to turn up. It involves a lot of walking around, and cleaning stuff, and fixing stuff, and mowing things, and carrying things.
And noticing things.
Now I'm not saying my motel had a bug problem. I'm saying that it was my job to notice bugs before anyone else did, and remove them so they didn't. I just added an extra step between notice bug and remove bug: photograph bug.
If they were outside, I left them alone. I still got the shot, but I left them alone. Unless they were the nasty, bitey sort of critters that scare people, in which case I usually erred on the side guest comfort. A golden orb spider can stay where it is, a redback has to go. If you want to evolve to be all poisonous and painful, you live with the consequences.
Also flies, fuck them. For environmental reasons, I preferred the swatter to the bug spray, and there's an aesthetic benefit to that approach as well...
And as I became more and more obsessed with taking better and better photos of more and more insects (and spiders, and slugs and other things that aren't officially insects but it would make this easier to write if you weren't so pedantic about definitions), a fascinating thing happened.
I started seeing beauty everywhere.
I started seeing beauty everywhere.
And sometimes comedy...
And often tragedy...
I became intensely aware of the smallest details. My eyes were drawn to it. My brain sought it out even when I wasn't looking.
And with practice, I got better at seeing the light and the shadows and the angles that best captured the moments. Sometimes I just took lots of photos and hoped for the best. Other times it only took one...
And with practice, I got better at seeing the light and the shadows and the angles that best captured the moments. Sometimes I just took lots of photos and hoped for the best. Other times it only took one...
Ok, maybe a few, but they were all from the same angle, I just needed options in case one was blurry. Or maybe that was a different one, it's hard to remember, there are so many.
So, so, so many...
So, so, so many...