The last two nights have brought lightning, thunder and torrential rains. The mornings have been cool and quiet with clouds of wet mist settled like a brilliant soggy blanket over everything in sight. The abundance of life in the garden and the beautiful softbox effect of the clouds and mist made an ideal haven for an amateur naturalist and photographer. My wife, son and two dogs had loads of fun this morning wandering around the garden and under the giant dripping Gum trees and ferns looking for spider webs covered with droplets of rain for me to photograph.
A spider sitting motionless in the centre of its jewelled domain.
The photograph above is an HDR composite of a web spun within the circular metal pieces of our front gate. I was losing too much detail in the dark areas of the metal and a 3 exposure HDR allowed me to pull that detail back into the image so that it better reflected how my eye saw it.
The tensile strength of spider silk never ceases to amaze me. Looking at the comparative size of those tiny, near invisible threads and the sheer volume of water they effortlessly hold is both inspiring and beautiful.
Not sure what this little Arachnid was up to but he/she was very busy bustling about, back and forth, between the little drops of water in the centre of the web. I have a very active imagination with a propensity towards anthropomorphism and I felt sure that this spider was busy cleaning up after the inconsiderate storm whilst muttering through it’s bristling chelicerae.
Recent Comments