Many years ago, Brent VanFossen was hiking around the Olympic National Park in our favorite area of Hurricane Ridge during the beautiful alpine wild flower season. He spotted this plumb yellow crab spider poised perfectly in the middle of lupine leaves like the yellow center of a flower.
It’s arms were outstretched, waiting for dinner to appear, and as he watched, so it did. A bee showed up to collect the lovely pollen it thought it would get from such a flower, only to be caught in the clutches of the awaiting attack spider.
Nature in all its glory and intricacies never fails to impress me.
Photography Technique
To capture this closeup, macro photography moment of the spider in the lupine, Brent had his 200mm lens on a tripod pointed down at the spider.
The foreground area was distracting with ground clutter, so he leaned a blooming lupine into the foreground close to the front of the lens so it would be out of focus, masking the distractions. This also helped put the focus on the spider, making it appear to be lurking, awaiting its prey.
The camera equipment was Nikon. No flash was used, just ambient light with a little bounce from a gold reflector.