It is a Huntsman Spider which are active only at night.  They run very fast flushed to the ground.  They live under tree barks or under stones and feed on ground dwelling insects. Some of the specimens are supposed to be poisonous as reported from the West.  We have no literature on our spiders and I can’t guarantee its potency of poison.  If mishandled,  could bite and very rarely do they bite humans !!!!!!

Image – 1

Shooting Butterflies is a tricky affair especially in tropical countries. The opportunity they provide for a photographer is very brief.  One has to be very much alert and observant. One must  know their habits and  food plants as well as the plants where they prefer to roost.

It is the migration time for butterflies and they are in the last leg of their migration in my part of India. Yesterday evening I was searching for such rooting butterflies in my garden ( designed to attract butterflies).  And I found this beautiful “Lime Butterfly” which was fluttering here and there to find a suitable place to settle for the night.  After I ensured its settlement I approached it in a very slow phased manner. First, I calculated the working distance by moving the camera to and fro and this gave me a hint as where to place my tripod. Then I mounted my Canon with 100mm Macro lens on the tripod with 580 Ex flash connected through an off the camera chord. Started to shoot making experiments with flash, giving importance to its texture.

As the shot was done after sunset by about 7 PM the background was rendered dark. I decided to continue my shooting tomorrow morning also.

Image – 2

I got up very early morning by about 5 am and visited the place where it was roosting yesterday. I was so lucky to find it there and waited for the sun to rise up to illuminate the background. I balanced the ambient light with my flash to take the above shot. The camera setting was the same as yesterday and in addition I used a cable release to trigger the shutter as the shutter speed was very low. The colors of the butterfly in both the images do differ from each other as they are lit by different sources.

Lime Butterflies are also known as Lemon butterfly, Citrus Butterfly, Lime swallowtail and Chequered Swallowtail. Their favorite plants are Curry-leaf, Citrus, Radish etc.,

This is a beautiful moth I photographed in my garden yesterday. Its presence was discovered  by my daughter Vaishnavi, who urged me to take this shot. This moth was  about 2 1/2 inches long and was lying on a leaf, quite camouflaged deep inside dwarf palm tree plants.

I later identified the species with the help of my close friend Mr.Jayaram, who is also a Macro Photographer and an expert taxonomist.

The moth is a common Hawk / Sphinx Moth and its scientific name is Daphnis nerii and its common name is ” Oleander Moth”.  This particular specimen   probably, just emerged.  Its favorite food plant is ” Nerium Oleander”. In our native language ” Tamil ” we call this plant as “ARALI”.  The flowers of this plant are regarded as having high spiritual significance in the temples.

Moths are Insects and they are active during nights.  It gets easily attracted by lights and it is interesting to see them circling the lights during nights. Most of them are nocturnal. But a few species are diurnal and crepuscular.

Like bird watching, watching Butterflies and Moths is known as butterflying and mothing.

Taken with Canon 1Ds Mark III with canon 100mm Macro. Used 580Ex flash with an off shoe camera cord.

An early morning I found this little creature resting on the wall outside my house. The interesting thing is the image is almost monotone !!! .. the wall has a cream color with a little green tinge in it.

Shot with 100mm Macro on Canon 1Ds Mark 1 body.