Brent has a beautiful eye for capturing the essence of a photograph. This moth is perfectly framed on the pine needled covered ground at Hurricane Ridge in the Olympic National Park.
Moths are amazing. There are over 160,000 species of months, nearly ten times the number of butterflies, so sayeth Wikipedia.
We love photographing moths. Their colorful and extremely diverse wing patterns, the soft fuzzy heads, all the sizes. They can be mesmerizing – and pests at the same time.
The Attacus atlas moth is the largest in the world, their wing span reaching to over 10 inches – the size of birds.
The Bombyx mori is a silkworm moth which makes the silk we so love wearing. Wikipedia states that as of 2002, these months produce over 130 million kilograms of raw silk a year. About 2,000 to 3,000 cocoons are required to make a pound of silk. That’s incredible. How did someone come up with that as a clothing idea?
In the Pacific Northwest, there are thousands of moths. We have a moth identification book just for this area. As I dig into what type of moth this is, just enjoy the image.
Photography Technique
Brent used a tripod and 200mm lens with an extension tube to capture this moth. It remained still enough that he could bounce some light into the dense forest floor area with a gold reflector, adding warmth to it as well.
The camera equipment was Nikon.