Bubblegum Fly
Category - Macro
[BPA2021-232]

I spent a lot of time with my camera and macro lens during lockdown this year, in a way the lockdown was a blessing in disguise, at least from a photography perspective, as it got me looking a lot more closely at the plants in my garden and looking for little creatures that ordinarily would go unnoticed. A perfect example of that is this fly sat on a flower blowing a bubble. Now I looked at the actual reason for this and it's to do with it blowing out stomach juices and sucking them back in to cool itself down, which is in all honesty very disgusting, however if you forget that, from a photo perspective it's really quite beautiful! I like to call it the bubblegum fly as the photo has a very pink vibe much like bubblegum, and of course the fly is blowing a bubble, much like a child does when chewing bubblegum. The lighting is very nice, the colours vibrant and there's a nice colour reflection on the bubble itself which helps to highlight it. The fly was quite obliging, I guess because it was hot it was in no rush to move so I had time to set up my camera, tripod and Nikon SB-700 speedlight and capture some shots. I had never seen anything like it! It's funny to think that had I not been stuck in my house/garden, had it been just another normal non lockdown day, this would not have been seen. The beauty of a little time and a magnified lens is like a key to whole new world, a world many never get to see. I like that through photography I'm able to show a new perspective to people, to show another side of an insect that is so often swatted away and disregarded.

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