Praying Mantis

Praying Mantis, October 29, 2005
This praying mantis was walking through sand in our back yard when I snapped this shot. I "cranked up" the ISO of the digital "film" so that I could get this shot in the dim light of late afternoon-so there is quite a bit of grain in this shot. I did use a tripod to hold the camera steady, and moved it around the sand area to keep up with the movement of the mantis. I also opened up the aperature pretty wide, so that I could let in as much light as possible. This gives a shallow depth of field, and fortuntately, I was able to get the eyes in the plane of focus. I like the way the front and back of the frame appear fuzzy because they are out of focus.