InsectPub and Butterfly Day - Grass Spider Model

Here's a few grass spider shots for this #butterflyday and #insectpub by @whatisnew

This spider may look scary but these grass spiders are pretty docile and very rarely bite.

I found this gal crawling around in my condo, she must have come in off the balcony when I had the door open. One of the rules for insects is if they find their way into my home they get a macro photoshoot.

I put her on one of my pressed leaves from last fall. Her colors work well against the brown leaf.

Here I held the leaf up against the window to get some sun backlighting. The leg transparency really shows up here.

Here's one of the few shots I was able to get of her face.

This shot accidentally got over exposed but her dark face managed to show up pretty clear.

It was a bit tricky trying to keep the spider still on the leaf and take pictures at the same time. Most of the time she wanted to be crawling nonstop. Some insect photographers like to put the insect in the refrigerator a few seconds to cool them down so they are more sluggish for the photoshoot. I didn't want to go through all the trouble as this spider was already fairly tame.

Here's a test on a white background. The details really came out but I like the natural leaf background better.

This flattened ginko leaf works really well with the brown color of the spider.

Finally this shot turned out interesting with her arms hanging over the leaf and her shadow being cast as a silhouette.

Happy #butterflyday :-)