Tuesday morning I met Dan for breakfast, followed by a photo session at my house where I was showing him the techniques I use in my insect studio.   I think I learned more from him.  He showed me how to use custom white balance, which compensates for the yellow cast that fluorescent lights tend to make.  It worked beautifully.  We shot a praying mantis and a mole cricket. 

The mantis	The mole cricket

Afterward we went into the back yard to look for targets of opportunity.  I had a box turtle that I had found on a motorcycle ride earlier in the week.  It was the first I've ever seen in Lewis County, but it was crossing the road between two corn fields.

Box turtle	Metallic fly

Ugly fly	Long-horned grasshopper

Colorful fly

Dan conned me into letting him take some photos of me, then sent me this photoshopped image.  I love it.  I do like to photograph large insects!

Joe goes BIG.

Wednesday night at Lowell's I caught 5 crappie, 4 bass and a bluegill.  The fish are on the bite in spite of the hot weather.  I had quite a mess to fillet when we were done, but it was well worth it.    We released the box turtle in the blackberry patch.  I think it's safer there than on the roadway.

Quite a while ago I was invited to write a chapter of a book on the evolution of wasps.  After I turned it the final draft of the text, the editor asked if I could provide photos of some of the species carrying their prey.  I emailed back, "Hell, yeah!"  Not really, but words to that effect anyway.  But I didn't have photos of all the species I wanted.  The deadline is not until December so I had all summer to collect them.  Friday I found myself with nothing pressing to do and decided to try to get a shot of a black and yellow mud dauber carrying a spider.  I knew it was a long shot.  First I'd have to find active nests, then spot one carrying prey, then get the shot.  I'd have to use flash because they always nest in dark places.  I looked in my boat house where I'd collected data last summer and I saw no live wasps.  I remembered seeing lots of the wasps at my friends the LaCounts' earlier in the summer.  They have lots of barns and outbuildings that mud daubers love.  I called up Rhonda and she told me come right down.  She let me into her little garden shed, which had lots of nests and a few wasps buzzing around already.  I just put my regular flash on the camera and sat in the shed.  A wasp showed up carrying something that I thought was a mud ball.  But mud balls don't have legs.  Having the door ajar seemed to disorient her a little, and she spent a lot of time crawling around the doorway.  That gave me many opportunities, even while waiting for the flash to charge.  In less than five minutes I had the shot.  I showed the LaCounts and they were equally surprised.  I went back in the afternoon to try for more, and with fancier remote flashes, but all I got was really hot, and nothing better than this:

Success!