SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL
SAYS CHAS. WEBB.
(With thanks to Roy Salmons for sending this copy and picture files)I enjoy looking into hedge bottoms, turning over stones and fallen branches, or peering into ponds and streams, and never cease to wonder about the small lively creatures that live there. Their shapes and lifestyles are exiting, though I must confess to having read far more about them than I'll ever be able to capture on film. We are privileged to see the work of experts on television and can only marvel at their knowledge, and try to fathom out their techniques and mastery of
equipment.
The first thing that becomes obvious, should you venture to take your camera into the field, is how near you have to get to your subject. You may well have a "macro" setting that allows you a sharp image at just a few inches from the lens .... well that's alright if you wish to film the workings of a pocket-watch, but anything with legs or wings will have vanished long before you ever get that close.
A camera with a long telephoto or zoom up to 300mm, that at its closest focusing distance, usually five feet, will let you with careful approach film a butterfly sipping nectar from a flower, or perhaps a pollen powdered bumble bee entering and leaving the trumpets of a lovely foxglove. This setting and distance will give a large enough image on your 35mm frame, and on screen a very pleasing image. If your approach is too long or impatient, the insect will have gone elsewhere, but perservere. Practice makes for perfection.
You can capture insects in the area you're searching, and like the professionals, build elaborate "sets" to release them into, and let them settle down to their improvised habitat before becoming subjects in your next slide show. These professionals know all about the creatures they are filming. They handle them and look after them with extreme care. You, and they are subject to certain rules and regulations, whether they are rare or not. If you wish to use them, give them the care they deserve, or your specimen will look old and worn.
Should you desire to photograph a complete life-cycle, say egg to free flying butterfly, you may have some gruesome moments, fascinating to watch, but unfortunate for your subject. Luckily one caterpillar or butterfly of the same species looks the same as another, so any casualties should be easily replaced, but do notice that it is with a full set of legs, or the wings are not tattered. It's no good finding a leaf with eggs adhered on the underside and taking them home, watching the baby caterpillars emerge - and then find you don't know what plant it was they were laid on Your babies need more food! Getting to know your subject is a worthwhile objective: books on insects, plants and indeed most natural history can be found, or obtained for you, through the library services. Once you start, the excitement can get you hooked on a new hobby.
A patch of the common stinging nettle can provide more caterpillars than you need, that will turn into very beautiful butterflies, so only take a few. Put them into an aquarium - dry, of course, - give them fresh nettles every day, cleaning out the old material every other day. With success you will have some wonderful pupae suspended from the cover of the aquarium or the dry stem of the nettle; then the excitement of watching through your viewfinder the glory of a new colourful butterfly being born.
The tall, rosy-pink flowers growing on old railway sidings or disused lines, rosebay willow herb, is also worth seeking. It's the favourite plant for the large browny-black caterpillar of the beautiful Elephant Hawk Moth. You can learn how it got its name. They too make a good subject for your lens.
If you have roses in your garden and aphids are a problem, don't spray them. Rig up the tripod, camera and cable release. Film the ants running up and down the stems. What are they doing? Look among the aphids and you will see that they are not attacking them but taking a sticky solution excreted by these green hordes, called honeydew. Now look around the garden to find a ladybird. carefully place it on the stem of the rose and you should have a battle royal on your film. The ants will try and dislodge the ladybird by squirting formic acid at her, for they know she will be making a meal of their sugar suppliers, the aphids. Capture all this in your garden and you will have done better than me. I've only got to showing how ladybirds have a preference for greenfly over blackfly - both different forms of the winged aphids.
There is a whole world of wonders out there, but it takes a lot of studying and finding ways of capturing it with your camera. One instance I always wonder about was from the film on TV about the common housefly. You see it flying over a field - yes, it's a full side view image - but wait, a wasp sees it passing, gives chase and you actually see the aerial capture. I still wonder how you follow that! Wasp capturing fly in full flight. Mind you I did say these people were experts, but remember, they had to learn how, somewhere along the way.