Mantis in Bloom (4 photos if you scroll)

[Don Ellis]

For those who are getting tired of infrared animals...

http://www.kleptography.com/mantis/mantis-10.jpg

Don

[pappy]

This is spectacular....an amazing shot, I like it a lot.

Regards,
Peter

[getg3]

Don,

Thank you for showing it! Fantastic!

[SoCal69]

It's even better in color Don! Is the dark spot on the eye a reflection?

[marie]

thank you,
thank you don

he is beautiful in full colour,
whatever,
but mostly in colour,

I can see where his lovely curly tail is looking more soft in the black and white shots though
(or maybe this fellow is an elder)
: )

great shots

the mantis looks so delicate .
I imagine they are gobbled up and eaten in a flash by the enemy

thank you again

marie

[Don Ellis]

Peter and getg3... thanks very much. Your comments and exclamations are appreciated.

socal69... thanks, glad you like it. The dark spot is the pupil of his eye. The eyeball rotates pretty freely inside the clear dome, meaning he can always keep an eye on you, even when you're behind him.

Marie... you're welcome, you're welcome. I knew you wanted a color version. While the mantis can certainly be gobbled by birds, they are ferocious predators of other insects. They have lightning reflexes with those forearms and they can make prodigious leaps to get where they're going. Coupled with their natural camouflage and ability to remain motionless for long periods of time, they remain largely unseen to their prey until it's too late.

The recent infrared shots and these color shots are all the same fellow. I took 175 infrareds and got six or seven keepers. I shot 112 color and kept four. The top one is my favorite but in the interest of fairness, here are the other three...

http://www.kleptography.com/mantis/mantis-11.jpg


http://www.kleptography.com/mantis/mantis-12.jpg


http://www.kleptography.com/mantis/mantis-13.jpg

In this last one, you can see what I mean about keeping an eye on you wherever you are.

Cheers,

Don

[new girl on the bloc]

Don - how fantastic that you know these creatures so well. They seem to pose for you, no? Wonderful shots. I'm curious when did your fascination of the preying mantis begin?

[Don Ellis]

new girl on the bloc wrote:
Don - how fantastic that you know these creatures so well. They seem to pose for you, no? Wonderful shots. I'm curious when did your fascination of the preying mantis begin?
Hi, new girl,

They're really quite sweet since I'm too large a meal for them. To get them on the camera, for instance, I just put my finger in front of them and they climb on. The difficulty is getting them to climb off -- they would prefer to climb up my arm. The other nuisance is their leaping from the camera they're on to the camera you're shooting them with -- as I mentioned earlier, they're quite adept at leaping.

My fascination is that of the lazy man -- I walk to the garden, see one, and start photographing. In another case, a tiny baby jumped on my hand while I was reading the paper on the terrace (I almost swatted him away, thinking he was a mosquito). And one of the big ones flew through the front door into the living room. I love their exotic look and it helps that they're so patient (tame).

They're much easier to photograph when they're a little larger than this one. There's more body and color variation and you don't have to be quite so in-your-face, suffering the shallow depth-of-field you get with the macro lens.

Thanks for looking and commenting.

Don

[pappy]

Wow! Again! The first in this series is my favourite but it is a very hard choice as all (infrared and colour) are wonderful photographs. Inspiring!

Regards,
Peter

[Don Ellis]

pappy wrote:
Wow! Again! The first in this series is my favourite but it is a very hard choice as all (infrared and colour) are wonderful photographs. Inspiring!
Peter
Thank you, Peter... for your comments and for telling me what you like best. (I agree with you.)

I haven't put any of these photos on my website yet (actually doing some real work :)), but you can find the entire parade of this guy at www.kleptography.com/mantis. There's nothing you haven't already seen, but at least they're clustered.

Cheers,

Don

[Conk]

I was begining to wonder if this guy was a pet.
Don, Absolutely amazing. I never thought I'd like a bug photo so much. The colour is riviting. Great work Don.

[Keith-S]

Hey I must be your legless cousin :eyes

http://www.pbase.com/image/17279835.jpg
Been enjoying your photography for a long time Don keep up the good work.
Cheers Keith-s

[EricvZ]

Your photo's are really amazing. Saw your Website and am astonished bij the beauty of your pictures. How many time are you spending on photography? Is it still your hobby or do you make a living with it ?? Just curious...

[Don Ellis]

Keith-s... I would say "poor baby" but he looks more like a war veteran. The adult in one of my favorite photos was also missing a forearm. I just shot him from an angle where you couldn't see it...

http://www.kleptography.com/images-mantis/veteran/scrw_4154-1024ps150.jpg

EricvZ... thanks very much -- I'm glad you enjoyed the photos. Time spent is, of course, relative. Ask Leela, my wife, and you're going to get a wildly larger (and perhaps more accurate) estimate than if you ask me, but I do spend a fair amount of time at it. One thing that helps is carrying the camera wherever I go, so if I arrive for a meeting thirty minutes early I can make use of the time. I don't often go out specifically to take photographs. If I were guessing, I'd say two hours a day.

So it's still a hobby although it has some small commercial application in my advertising day job (allowing me to shoot my own concepts for creative presentations rather than scouring the stock photo books).

Cheers,

Don

[Don Ellis]

conk wrote:
I was begining to wonder if this guy was a pet.
Don, Absolutely amazing. I never thought I'd like a bug photo so much. The colour is riviting. Great work Don.
Hi Colin,

Always good to hear from you... thank you. He's not a pet but we do share the same garden. The thing that makes the mantis photos more interesting for me and many others is the fascinating appearance of the creature itself -- gangly, cute, green and dangerous.

Thanks again.

Don

[marie]

thank you for all the information in your replys don

you'll hate keeping this going : ))

didn't see 'all' the pictures on your site displayed on the forum , as you think and have said

because you have put on a few more then usual you feel we have seen them all

no way.
(see below )
: )

I especially noticed I could measure the little green 'monster' after seeing the picture of him on your keyboard
maybe it is because that one is a veteran but he must be all of three inches long ?
I was amazed when I was taking a shot of a little buttercup and realised it was about three quarters of a inch round , that the size you were dealing with regards photographing the mantis fellows was the same .

also the clock shows about 15 or twenty minutes time difference ( between takes ? )
so it took a lot of patience for each shot
or did he hop around so much you got all of the shots in that time

loved all of these ( and more )


http://www.kleptography.com/mantis-eggplant1761.htm

http://www.kleptography.com/mantis-keyboard5906.htm
http://www.kleptography.com/mantis-veteran4146.htm

http://www.kleptography.com/mantis-veteran4128.htm

http://www.kleptography.com/mantis-mantisface6007.htm

http://www.kleptography.com/mantis-mantisface6007.htm


http://www.kleptography.com/mantis-irbaby1741.htm
http://www.kleptography.com/mantis-irbaby1807.htm

http://www.kleptography.com/mantis-eggplant1256.htm
walking the plank

http://www.kleptography.com/mantis-baby3890.htm

this is the only way I can say how good he looks in these really great shots

thanks again
marie