My first visit to the Entomology Collection Store. Cockroaches, Dragonflies and Hornets.

I had arranged with Dmitri via email to meet him at the museum in the reception at 11am.

I got slightly lost trying to find the car park and ended up being 20 minutes 
late ! Not my greatest ever introduction.

Meeting Dmitri (fig-1) was fantastic, he is a really friendly person, incredibly knowledgeable and seriously passionate about his subject and made me feel very welcome straight away.

Fig-1

He took me upstairs through a maze of tunnels to his collection area where he works.

What a fascinating place !

Everywhere I looked, there were rows and rows of shelves and beautiful old glass fronted wooden cabinets. In each of these cabinets were lots of drawers each of which containing some truly fascinating specimens from all over the world.

Fig-2

Fig-3

I explained my idea to Dmitri that I wanted to try to capture the facial details of  the insects with my photography.

The first specimens that he brought me were a drawer full of cockroaches which are native to the UK !
(Fig-4) 

Fig-4

I had planned ahead and had brought all of my photographic equipment and my laptop with me. I quickly set up and Dmitri kindly offered me the use of a really solid Canon copy-stand that was in the office (Fig-5). 

Fig-5

This would turn out to be so much easier to use than a tripod.

I started to photograph the cockroaches and my the initial results worked really well.

Figures 6-26 below are from my very first shoot at the Manchester Museum when I met with Dmitri for the first time.

  Fig-6

  Fig-7

In figures 6 and 7, my intention was to to compose the cockroaches in such a fashion that it would mimic a traditional "head and shoulders" type of portrait shot.

I used a mixture of natural light from the window and 2 small, adjustable fluorescent lights that were attached to the copy stand to light the shots.

This lighting was OK for an initial test but as I am aiming to capture these insects as a portrait photographer, I feel that I need to have much more controllable lighting so I will arrange to borrow a set of portable studio lights from the equipment store at my University.

I also feel that the background colour is too uneven, a portrait that would be taken in a studio by a professional photographer would have a properly  balanced uniform background.

I intend to develop this background on my next visit.

The images were captured using the "focus-stacking" technique which I will explain in much more detail in my post entitled "focus-stacking."

I think that these first two images really do have a portrait feel to them.

I used a portrait-crop on Figure 8 to cut further into the image to see how this looks (fig-8).

I also like the look of this portrait style.

At the moment, I am not sure if my final images will be presented in either portrait, landscape or a mixture of both.

I also need to consider the cropping and framing of my images for the book that I intend to produce as part of this project.

I have decided that it will be in the format of 10 inches long and 8 inches high 10''x8''.

From my previous experience in book design, it is always better to not crop my initial images too tightly as this can cause serious problems when laying out the pages of my book design.

At the same time though, I am trying to capture as much detail as possible with these images and do need to ensure that I crop relatively tightly.

  Fig-8

I think that the crop in Figure 8 really does take on an almost "humanoid" form in it's appearance.

This looks nothing like the traditional view that we normally have of a cockroach as we look down at it scurrying across the floor.

From this angle, we have an eye to eye view of the cockroach.

It's head is almost skull-shaped and it's eyes and mouth-parts are clearly apparent to the viewer.

This really reflects my idea of portraying the character of an insect in the same way that I would take a portrait photograph of a person.

The highlights on top of the head are somewhat distracting though and in the sense of a true portrait image, I need to have a lighting system that reflects this style.

  Fig-9

  Fig-10

  Fig-11

Upon reviewing my images, I was really impressed as to just how much detail the focus-stacking technique had allowed me to capture.

After rendering the stacked images into a single image, I saved them by exporting them as TIFF files and the file-size was a staggering 107 mb per file ! 

These are the biggest single-image files that I have ever created and I have never had a single file of this size before !

I decided to try to crop quite deeply into the images to show some of the body parts of the cockroaches in close-up detail and can be seen in figures 9, 10 and 11.

It was incredible to see the level of detail that I was able to retain after cropping so far into an image! 

I have never photographed insects at this level of detail before and I definitely intend to include some of these images in the book that I am producing for this project.

  Fig-12

  Fig-13

  Fig-14

Figures 12 and 13 show the cockroach in the manner that we would most usually observe it and compared to figures 6,7 and 8, this looks like a completely different creature !

Fig-15

Fig-16

Fig-17

Fig-18

Fig-19

Figures 15-19 show a Dragonfly.

Figures 16 and 17 show the exceptional level of detail that I have been able to capture in the compound-eye of the Dragonfly.

I have never before been able to achieve anything that even comes close to this in terms of the level of detail that I have been able to capture by using traditional macro-photography.

This is Incredible !

And for only my second ever attempt at focus-stacking.

I am sure that with more experience and practice, i will be able to achieve some spectacular results !

Fig-20

Fig-21

Fig-22

Figure 22 is a cropped-version of Figure 20 which is an Asian Hornet from Taiwan ! Its name is Vespa-Mandariniana.

This is the biggest Hornet that I have ever seen in my life. Its body is almost 2 inches long !

I am surprised just how far that I am able to crop into the image whilst still retaining this level of detail.

Fig-23

Fig-24

Fig-25

Fig-26

Figures 23-26 show the Asian Hornet (Mandariniana) in the frontal/portrait view that I intend to portray the insects in.

Although I am really impressed with the incredible level of detail that I have been able to capture.

I still feel that there is absolutely massive scope for improvement and refinement.

The white-balance is way off. In figures 20-26, the background should be white and it is not, there is a really heavy blue cast.

I intend to use a more controllable lighting system to try to overcome this.

The highlights on the Hornet's eyes are very distracting and detract from the amazing level of detail that I have been able to capture within the eye.

A more flexible lighting system should also help me to get around this problem.