Do you guys shoot insects dead or alive?

My daughter called me the other day to tell me that there was a huge spider in her garage and wanted me to come over to take pictures of it.

chrisa wrote in post #12581168
My daughter called me the other day to tell me that there was a huge spider in her garage and wanted me to come over to take pictures of it.

I have my kids (and wife) trained similarly. Bugs are for pictures, not killing.

I would never kill a bug to take a photo... To me it's all part of it. I've only started dslr recently, and I just think, I could put a jumping spider in the fridge or freezer to get a picture, or I could exercise patience and shoot an active one in it's natural environment? Which is going to benefit my photography? It can be frustrating as hell, when I take my camera out, some things are so hard to get close to, a lot if things get away, but that makes it all the more satisfying when you do get the shot!

I'm biassed on that anyway, as I've been keeping bugs as pets for a few years now. Obviously when I shoot those, they are not in their natural environment, but an environment that simulates it as much as it can!

slwx wrote in post #12583919
I would never kill a bug to take a photo...

Have you read the entire thread? You knowingly kill hundreds of insects each time you set foot in nature. Does our ability to feign ignorance of this fact really absolve us of all moral responsibility?
If this is something that happens with each step we take outside of a pavement, can we really say that it's just an unhappy accident and that we have no control over it and so are not responsible in any way?
You go out of your way not to disturb one particular insect you have made a connection with while standing on countless dead ones. To me it certainly seems it's all about making ourselves feel good and not about protecting anything.
Now, we could argue which way of shooting is more fun or challenging but that would be a completely different discussion. From my experience it's a lot harder and more challenging to make a good focus-stack of a dead insect than it is to make a one-shot of a living one. Both can be fun in different ways.

dsvilko wrote in post #12584003
Have you read the entire thread? You knowingly kill hundreds of insects each time you set foot in nature. Does our ability to feign ignorance of this fact really absolve us of all moral responsibility?
If this is something that happens with each step we take outside of a pavement, can we really say that it's just an unhappy accident and that we have no control over it and so are not responsible in any way?
You go out of your way not to disturb one particular insect you have made a connection with while standing on countless dead ones. To me it certainly seems it's all about making ourselves feel good and not about protecting anything.
Now, we could argue which way of shooting is more fun or challenging but that would be a completely different discussion. From my experience it's a lot harder and more challenging to make a good focus-stack of a dead insect than it is to make a one-shot of a living one. Both can be fun in different ways.

I guess I phrased it wrong, I'm not gonna knowingly and deliberately kill a creature just to take a photo of it...

slwx wrote in post #12584045
I guess I phrased it wrong, I'm not gonna knowingly and deliberately kill a creature just to take a photo of it...

But you are ok with knowingly and deliberately causing the death of thousands of insects so you can take a photo of one undisturbed insect? I simply see no difference. When I freeze an insect I am not killing it for the fun of it. It's an unfortunate necessity of me wanting to take a certain kind of photo. When you kill the insects beneath your feet you also see it as an unfortunate but unavoidable price that has to be paid for your photographic enjoyment. You could have stayed home - there is nothing unavoidable about it. Once we have decided that today is a nice day to take some photos, the fate of a few (thousand) insect was set.

dsvilko wrote in post #12584104
But you are ok with knowingly and deliberately causing the death of thousands of insects so you can take a photo of one undisturbed insect? I simply see no difference. When I freeze an insect I am not killing it for the fun of it. It's an unfortunate necessity of me wanting to take a certain kind of photo. When you kill the insects beneath your feet you also see it as an unfortunate but unavoidable price that has to be paid for your photographic enjoyment. You could have stayed home - there is nothing unavoidable about it. Once we have decided that today is a nice day to take some photos, the fate of a few (thousand) insect was set.

I think "thousands" may be a bit of an exaggeration... But yes, bugs will get stepped on and killed, but my rabbits in the garden will be stepping on animals and killing them, anything bigger than a bug can step on it and kill it, and every time I leave the house I imagine something will get stepped on, whether it's for a leisure activity or going to work or something. But it is being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I can't keep my eyes on the ground all the time...

But what I am trying to say, is I'd never think "You look like you'd make a nice photo, come here so I can kill you!".

I do understand where you are coming from, and I hope you can see where I am coming from.

Everything kills to live. Only humans worry about it.

slwx wrote in post #12584134
I do understand where you are coming from, and I hope you can see where I am coming from.

I do. I had precisely the same way of thinking for years. It's only been when I have been 'forced' to kill insects for deep-stacking experiments that I started thinking about it. That is exactly my point. Our actions are not driven by rationally considering what effect we have on our environment (insect lives in this case) but on the appearance of decency. On weather we feel good about ourselves.
As someone who extremely rarely has time to visit 'nature' and lately collects one or two insects a week to be frozen (from my apartment window), I think I cause a couple of orders of magnitude fewer insect deaths than an average macro photographer. Is this something we at all care about?
There are very few insects on the pavement so going to work (for most people) is not exactly the same as taking a stroll in the woods. We are not talking about a small difference here. Also remember that we are not talking about huge bugs (rare) but insect that can be photographed. If you would to examine the top few cm of soil under your feet you could easily find hundreds of insects - all of them highly likely to get injured under your weight. By deciding that you will go in the woods to take a few macro shots you have decided that all the deaths you will cause are perfectly acceptable. What I frankly find a bit hypocritical is when those same people say that they would _never_ kill a living thing to photograph it - wanting to say that they are somehow morally superior. Again, I really see no difference.
I can't avoid killing an insect for a 50-shot stack. You can't avoid killing insects to get to the one you want to photograph in it's natural environment. I could have decided not to do a focus-stack. You could have decided not to photograph an insect in nature but wait for it to land on your window.

Between 1348 and 1350, fleas killed half the worlds human population. Do you think the fleas felt bad about that?

canonloader wrote in post #12584225
Everything kills to live. Only humans worry about it.

Your comment is spot on!

Looking at it from a human point of view, there are many predator species in the world, that kill to survive. Animals, fish, birds and humans, even microbes. But there are very few species that kill when they don't have to. Among them, humans and cats.

I recently bought a microscope to view the small microbes in water. It's a great hobby. I have found the same thing to be true in the microscopic world. Compared to the overall number of species, only a very few kill to survive, and I have seen none that kill just to kill. Most of the small life lives by eating algae or bacteria.

One thing is for sure though, everything kills something else by accident or design. It's just the way the world turns and it's a waste of time to worry about it.

People that kill insects just to photograph them only do it to little poor insects. You never see them going to Africa to kill a lion to bring it home for some photos. They never pick someone their own size

canonloader wrote in post #12584447
One thing is for sure though, everything kills something else by accident or design. It's just the way the world turns and it's a waste of time to worry about it.

With the excitement of my first day of a new camera,
I don't even want to tell you what I did to an ant that wouldn't stay still
Karma will get me though, just when I have a great shot of a bee going

canonloader wrote in post #12584447
Looking at it from a human point of view, there are many predator species in the world, that kill to survive. Animals, fish, birds and humans, even microbes. But there are very few species that kill when they don't have to. Among them, humans and cats.

...

And occasionally wolves, though that's relatively rare in the wild.