Mister Moth

Camera: D200
Lens: Tamron SP90 Macro
f/32 at 1/125
ISO 100
SB600 Speedlight (off camera)

One day when I returned home from an errand I noticed this moth hanging out by my front door. I quickly grabbed my gear hoping it would still be there when I returned. Luckily, it was. I set my camera on a tripod and turned on my flash. I snapped off a bunch of shots real fast expecting it to fly away at any moment.

It didn’t. It turned out be quite tolerant of me and my camera and flash poking around no more than six inches from it. This was when I slowed down and started to really think about what I was doing. I took several more shots adjusting the aperture each time so as to vary the depth-of-field.

Next, I tried putting the flash at different distances and at different angles to the subject. The moth was resting on the door frame made of wood and stained a shade of honey-brown (yes, like beer). I did not like the look of the wood so I positioned the flash to throw lots of light on the moth but not the wood. In post processing I desaturated the image to rid it of any of the natural wood colour that could still be seen.