Lady Bug

Many moons ago, like back in the early days of life on earth, I was fixing to take pictures of lady bugs. And I did. I took plenty of lady bug pictures. Then, quick as I took them, I deleted those pictures because inevitably, the lady bugs depicted were always totally, or more usually, partly, out of focus. Sure, I could have maybe kept those pictures, attempting to pass them off as art, but those pictures annoyed me too much even to pass off as art. So they got deleted. Dern out of focus lady bugs.

It’s true. For me, lady bugs have not been kindly or photogenic. They never sat still and they never seemed to want any of the aphids I gave them. Total non-cooperation.

Yet eventually I may have figured out the craft of lady bug photography. Lady bugs require a very high shutter speed and a correspondingly very high F stop to deal with their endless faunching and a body shape that features great depth relative to the other two dimensions which you may know as length and width.

Not inappropriately, my first acceptable lady bug picture depicts a member of the genus Harmonia, possibly Harmonia axyridis, the introduced Asian multicolored lady bug. Notice, there are no aphids in the picture?

Introduced insects are usually a bad idea which is why the Agriculture Department is keen on making sure all the insects from everywhere else eventually wind up in these parts. This one reportedly smells bad and bites.