Dandelion and Orange Insect

I like the dark background in contrast with the bright yellow of the dandelion.  When I was really little, I called the pretty weeds "dandy-flowers."  A few times, my family went into our yard and picked a gazillion of them, fried them, and ate them for supper (Sounds weird, but trust me, it's really good!).

The bug has a orange color that blends nicely with the yellow.  He walked around the small flower near the smaller insect with a silly air of "I'm huge, fear me." 

Silky Webs

The majority of the photos in this series were taken on the same day in the same field.  I was doing a photoshoot with my brother, and the one thing that always happens (just ask my brother) is that I get distracted by interesting things.  Not that my brother isn't interesting, but I'm just digging myself deeper into a hole, aren't I? ;)

The photo above took my fancy, with the spikiness of both the plant and the web itself.  Since it was later in the morning (around 10 or 11 AM), the sun was getting higher, and I had to adjust my shutter speed so as not to overexpose the web.

A flower in the corner is more the subject than the string of web, but the web adds to the composition as a leading line.

I thought the spider above was actually just a piece of dirt...until I looked at the photo on my laptop screen!  There is also a fly caught in the web in the corner, which you might not have noticed.  I like the fact that the web lines are visible.

Dried-out and dead, these flowers (or whatever they once were) sat in my garden, since overgrown now that our plants are gone.  The lines of webbing encircle the plant, and the background is well-blurred.

Stuck against a twig, this web was very peculiar.  The funny-looking lines that are positioned away from the twig seemed like big block letters you might see on an advertisement.

Tiny Vased Flowers

I was over at a friend's house, and she had a vase surrounded by colored sharpies.  The color is a bit attention-grabbing, but made for a nice background.  The white flowers were not very big at all, so I had to get really close for my camera to actually focus on them.

Grasshopper On Wood

Grasshoppers abound in our yard.  When I was a little kid, I would catch them in my hand (that required skill!) and dangle them by one leg.  Yes, I might have had PETA knocking on my door if they'd known, but they didn't... and I didn't know who they were back then (the good times, right?).  And besides, I was examining the grasshoppers.  Now, I photograph them.  And sometimes that requires skill.  Those little guys can jump off-screen in a split-second!  The one above did not.  It was about the slowest grasshopper I've ever seen.  Eventually, it did bound away.  But not before I snapped some photos really close-up.

It was about 2 or 3 in the afternoon when I took this photo.  Being able to see little hairs on the grasshopper is a little weird, yes, but kind of cool for a beginner-level DSLR like mine.

Tell me about the best macro insect photo you ever took!