I generally don't mind winter, but there is certainly one thing I dislike about the colder months - the lack of spiders and insects to shoot. Luckily, Anya has no problem promoting my love of shoot bugs, and so when she saw a jumping spider crawling around her office at work, she found a container to bring it home so I could take some photos of it.

It is always a challenge to work with a spider when it isn't in its normal environment. They will either hide or run - neither behavior really lends itself to photography. Because it is so cold and I haven't been getting many opportunities to work with spiders, we decided to keep this guy around for a bit. We put him in one of the larger containers I have from when I kept lots of reptiles and such, found him some leaves and such from house plants to use as hiding spots, and finally bought him a bunch of crickets to fatten him up during these lean times as some sort of compensation for the stress I may be inducing. Anyway - here we go...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/200 sec at f/11. Canon Speedlight 580EX II flash in auto mode and wireless control. Image Stabilization on. ISO 100. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

This shot originally was a vertical shot, but I liked this crop better and went with it - in particular, I like the lean the spider has to naturally set the balance of the shot. Also, the shot was taken on a white cardboard box, which I definitely like how that makes the shots look, and so will likely try that again in the future (though I think it adds to the way the spider doesn't like to sit still).

I'm just happy to have spiders to start working with again.

- Bill