Close encounters at the ESC JAM photography workshop

This weekend marks the start of the 150th annual meeting of the Entomological Society of Canada! I arrived in Guelph, Ontario, late last night and have an awesome week of science, networking and catching up with colleagues ahead of me!  😀

The conference started off with a fantastic workshop: insect macrophotography with none other than Alex Wild! As a BugShot alumnus twice over,  I was mostly there as a helper bee, but I managed to find a few moments to sneak in a couple of shots of my own.

I mean, how could I resist this subject?

She was a lovely, compliant, non-threatening subject;  it was really cool to get up close and personal with an animal that has such an ill-deserved bad reputation and see firsthand what they’re actually like.   It’s not my best photo ever, but I love the hourglass marking on her abdomen – this will be a useful image for instructional purposes at the very least 🙂