Photography Without Borders

Picking up right where I left off, I'm definitely excited about the LX-3. I've spent the last couple of hours skimming through flickr and looking at what people have been doing with the camera. I was mainly looking for photos that show the LX-3's colour representation, sharpness (with minimal photoshop) and found a couple of gems. Like this one and this one.

Photography makes me do some crazy things. I'm not the biggest fan of bugs and insects and other little bastards like that, but if I have a camera and a macro lens with me ... I'll get as close as I have to just to get the shot.

And all this kind of leads to my photos for today. It's all good when we take photos of the more "graceful" insects. When I take a photo of a dragonfly I think "Hey, that was an awesome shot" and, "I think I'll frame that one"

Camera: EOS 50D

Lens: Tamron 90mm f/2.8 macro

Settings: 1/500, f/3.5, ISO 200

Location: Lake Parramatta (deep in the bushland)

My impression of that dragonfly photo was ... I like that photo, and if I show it to people, I'm sure they'll like it too.

The next photo, however, is slightly more polarising ...

Camera: Canon EOS 50D

Lens: Tamron 90mm f/2.8 macro

Settings: 1/125, f/5, ISO 200

Location: Laker Parramatta

In this situation, I'm a photographer first ... so naturally my first impression of this photo was "Wow look at all the detail, I've never seen a fly this close before" and "Damn this is a really sharp lens". After viewing it on the computer monitor for a couple of seconds, common sense prevailed and my thoughts quickly turned to "That's so dirty", "There's so much detail in that it's disgusting", and "I think I'm going to throw up".

Every photographer that loves macro work will go through this thought process. And eventually we realise that some things are better left unphotographed. I have yet to see a macro photo of a cockroach framed in anyone's living room.

So I leave you, my children, with this question ... are we so speciest as humans that we look down upon lowly pests and parasites such as those that belong to the blattidae family? I'm no Buddhist, but I think I'll do everything within my power to not be reincarnated as a cockroach. Time to save the world ...