Wang Yang is 9 years old and his mom wants to improve his conversational English. How do you have a conversation with a 9 year old energetic boy? Seems like sitting around will never work, so I decided to try spider hunting as a reason for having a conversation. Fortunately Wang Yang is ok with spider hunting - though, in his words, "I don't like those naughty ants". So each Saturday he and I troop over to QSS for spider hunting.
My first lesson, before anything about the camera and macros is curious eyes. If you can't find 'em, you can't take macros of 'em. Turns out that Wang Yang has more curiosity (and energy) than I do. Here are things his curious eyes identified. I missed them all :(
Here is Wang Yang - a macro of himself (not difficult to find or identify)
A metallic multicolored fly
A praying mantis. It took great effort and patience on Wang Yang's part to show me this praying mantis. The color was so similar to the leaf veins that my old curious eyes missed it completely
Another metallic fly
A jumping spider
A lynx (I think)
Another view
Focus practice and being quiet when photographing a lizard
A jumping spider. This lady would not sit still. This was the best we could do
another try
and another try
and another fly
C. Frank Starmer