It’s been a week full of nature photos. I’m not completely sure if it’s due to spring’s presence (at times) here in Pennsylvania, or if it’s due in some part to Grandma’s passing, or to my impending 30th birthday next week, or due to the fact that nature seems so accessible here in the tiny little town of Hershey, PA, but regardless of the reasoning, it’s been a peaceful week of photos. Hopefully these little guys evoke the determination and energy that they showed me this afternoon. Usually, I avoid bugs like the plague. Not because I am afraid of them, or because they bother me, just because I tend to not need to include them in my life in any way… they go about their business, and I go about mine, and most of the time I try to avoid stepping on them. Today, I was sitting on a bench and reading a photography book in a park across the street and past the road construction from the theatre, and looked down to see these little guys running all over the place. I ran back to the theatre to grab my camera (I hadn’t taken a photo since the night photos of the creek and the covered bridge almost 36 hours before snapping this one, and had started slacking on bringing my camera with me everywhere). Grabbed the D7000 (and was thankful for the extra crop factor due to the smaller sensor) and the 50mm f/1.4 lens that I keep on it (perfect thanks to its wide aperture, speed, and narrow depth of field) and headed back before the show began. Armies of ants were running around the ground, obviously collecting things and taking them somewhere. Unfortunately, even with stuff on their backs, it was unbelievably difficult to keep any of them in focus, especially as I was laying on the ground and chasing them with my lens, trying to stay as close as possible without hitting the edge of the lens’ focal distance. I did get a few fun ones, and after just a little post-processing on them to get the ants themselves to pop a bit more than they were in the actual image, I am left with these. Today’s photo of the day, a 6th straight image of nature specifically, and the last one here in Hershey, PA. Off to upstate New York tomorrow. More from there.
—D
