I don’t know what it is with the spiders out here, but they are huge! This one, Charlotte, likes to hang out on our patio. One afternoon she built a web, the following day it blew down, that evening she built a web, that night it rained and destroyed the web, and the following day she built a new one. I figured after all that work she had better get photographed. I picked up my camera and my FL-50 boomstick flash and went to town. My wife freaked out when she saw me behind my 50mm fixed macro lens about 3 inches away from this gargantuan spider. Normally I would not be caught dead that close to a free standing spider in the wild, but when it comes to photography, I will do just about anything to get the perfect picture!
I am not sure what type of spider this is, I know she is in the Orb Weaver family. You can tell by the type of orb like web they weave. I tried to look it up but there are apparently 3000 species of Orb Weaver. Who really cares, with a family name like Orb Weaver you don’t need a first name!
I will be posting helpful hints for macro flash photography on Friday. I went to Photoshop World and took about 7 speed light related classes to better acquaint myself with flash photography, as you can see it helped! I will share what I have learned so far and several ways you can integrate these single exposures into your HDR workflow. Be sure not to miss this tutorial, I bare all of my secrets for the making of these photos!
For Blake, it's all about the art and process synergy. He dives deep into complex topics and makes them easy to understand through his outside-the-box thinking so that you can use these tricks in your workflow today!
