Wildlife Photographer of the Year Q&A: Spinning the cradle, Behavior: Invertebrates category winner

Up next in the series of Q&A posts about my Wildlife Photographer of the Year winning images is Behaviour: Invertebrates category winner: Spinning the cradle. Spinning the cradle. Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Invertebrate Behaviour category winner. A female fishing spider (Dolomedes scriptus) stretches out fine strands of silk from her spinnerets for weaving into her egg sac. Ontario, Canada You can watch the part when it appears in the awards ceremony here (timestamped) “Spinning…

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Wildlife Photographer of the Year Q&A: Beautiful bloodsucker, Behaviour: Invertebrates highly commended

Part 3 in the series of Q&A posts about my Wildlife Photographer of the Year winning images is Behaviour: Invertebrates highly commended: Beautiful bloodsucker. Beautiful bloodsucker. Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Invertebrate Behaviour category highly commended. A female mosquito (Sabethes sp.) in mid-bite. Amazon Basin, Ecuador You can watch the part when it appears in the awards ceremony here (timestamped) “Beautiful bloodsucker” is my personal favorite among my winning images, maybe because it took the…

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Wildlife Photographer of the Year Q&A: Bug filling station, Behaviour: Invertebrates highly commended

We are continuing our series of Q&A posts about my Wildlife Photographer of the Year winning images, and this time I will be reviewing Behaviour: Invertebrates highly commended: Bug filling station. Bug filling station. Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021, Invertebrate Behaviour category highly commended. Predatory stink bug nymph (Euthyrhynchus floridanus) feeding on a moth caterpillar. Mindo, Ecuador You can watch the part when it appears in the awards ceremony here (timestamped) Out of my…

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Wildlife Photographer of the Year Q&A: The spider room, Urban Wildlife category winner

Recently I was honored to have four of my photos commended in the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year photo competition organized by the Natural History Museum in London. This is a major achievement for me, and not something that I take lightly. A lot of hard work, dedication, and patience got me to this point. Most photographers spend years trying to get a single photo recognized in the competition, usually without success. To have…

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Goodbye 2020-2021: Why I will no longer post “year in review” recaps on this blog

If you have been following this blog long enough, you might have noticed that 2019 was the last year I wrote a “year in review” recap for. I think forcing myself to write a list of my annual accomplishments is overall a positive thing, but what about those years I feel like I had no accomplishments or personal growth? The pressure to prove something of self worth can have a negative effect. I think it…

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Little Transformers: This dung beetle has had enough of this bullshit

One of the things I have been focused on in the past two years, which is partially responsible for the long silence on this blog, is sorting through the backlog of photos in my archive. This is possibly the biggest curse of digital photography; you end up with hundreds of photos from each trip that eventually accumulate and often remain untouched for years. I made it a mission of mine to start going over this…

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Insect art: Eye makeup by Duran Jay (entomakeup)

You know, every once in a while I come across something original and unique that makes me fall in love with the art of adapting a reference to another medium. A great example for this is the world of fashion where designers draw their inspiration from just about anything you can (and cannot) imagine. Without doubt the natural world is used frequently as inspiration for flamboyant styles as well. However, occasionally I come across the…

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Maoristolus parvulus – extremely small and incredibly rare

These days I am going over my photo archives, doing some digital asset management. The work is mostly sorting images into folders and keywording, but make no mistake – it is a lot of work. Archive work is a great way to pass a cold winter, not that I’m complaining. We have been extremely spoiled this year with temperatures higher than the average for a Southern Ontario winter. And yet, winter is almost gone and…

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Bachia lizards – look, no hands!

Legend tells the story of Oedipus, who faced the sphinx guarding the gates to the city of Thebes. To enter, the monster presented him with a riddle: “Which creature has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed?” Oedipus was able to solve the sphinx riddle, granting him entrance to the city. He later became the king of Thebes and married his own mother – but that’s another story. The answer to the…

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