Week 43 by Becky

Caught!

I am always walking around my yard looking for things to shoot that I have not shot before. Started out trying to take a photo of two Mockingbird eggs in a nest.  Couldn't get the angle right to focus on the eggs. Plus, I didn't want to piss the mommy off too much. I will try again when the eggs hatch which will be real tricky since Mockingbirds are very mean when it comes to their babies. Then I took a photo of my Shih Tzu. Nope, didn't feel like submitting my dog again. Saw this web so I photographed it. It was very tricky since it was windy. I was not too thrilled  by just the web alone. I had no idea where the spider was. As I was about to leave, I saw this fly struggling in the corner of the web and I knew I had the photo for my No Wimpy Girls Photography blog.

Week 20 by Becky

Jumping Jack Flash

Wednesday night after work I was walking around the yard at 6:30pm. It was quickly getting dark so I was forced to use my on camera flash. I was also carrying around tin foil so that any light that came from the flash could be redirected by the tin foil. I came across this Rainbow Fly minding his own business on this leaf. Snapped the shot. I guess the flash scared the fly so much that it jumped off the leaf. Not the best focus on the fly since it moved, but the movement shows it jumped off the leaf in response to the flash. I named the fly Jack :)

Week 16 by Robin

Since both of you lucky gals just got shiny new macro lenses, I got a longing to hook mine up to the 7D with an extender like Roz (from DP Challenge) does to get her breathtaking macros. I also brought out the Gary Fong "Puffer" diffuser and my 430EX off the camera as a slave. These are tiny iridescent long legged flies (Condylostylus) that flit around on the hibiscus bushes. You can't get them with the flash from the front (unless you are Roz)...they are THAT fast, but I got this one from behind! :) No tripod today. I did some color adjustments and sharpening in Topaz Detail, then used Topaz adjust and a bit of Noise Ninja to smooth it out the background area.

Week 6 by Robin

From Becky's lovely image...to my photo of a this hideous creature, the common house fly. Beauty and the beast! Ha ha! I was outside with my macro lens looking for something cool to photograph with my external flash, but all my photos were terrible. So... I saw this housefly on the window sill and he became my model. I used my flash off the camera and set my camera's flash to flash with the external for the first time. It worked! No wires! I diffused the light some. The colors were quite nice for such a revolting creature! :)

-----------UPDATE------------

This photo won a first place prize of $60.00 at JPGMAG "JPG Shootout" " What's Buggin' You? " I didn't quite believe it at first, but it was true. Then...I got paid for the winning photo! Yay! What a wonderful feeling THAT is! Joy! :D