© Brad Mangas
I was getting back in late last night and couldn’t help but notice the sounds of life filling the dark night air. For many creatures we share this world with the night time is best time. Of course I don’t know exactly what are making all the sounds that fill the darkness, crickets and cicadas come to mind. I have been finding many cicada skins on the trees and fence around home the last month so I thought a shot I had in the archives would be appropriate to share.
This is a shot that I like very much. The colors and bokeh of the background turned out very well. This is a typical example of the need to be parallel with your subject to maintain maximum sharpness. I strived to maintain sharpness not only in the cicada but the stems of bluestem as well, positioning of the lens became critical for this since my aperture was kept at maximum for the the background bokeh effect.
I was in a very dense area of the tallgrass prairie this late summer day walking and looking at the big bluestem as it was reaching maturity. It didn’t take long to realize I was not only surrounded by tallgrass but the thriving cicadas as well. My attention quickly turned to these amazing little life forms. I’m proud to say there is a framed print of this image hanging in the office at the Konza Prairie Education Center. This was taken at Konza Prairie and I thought of no better place for it to be. It is a great honor to donate work to such a worthy organization and see it being proudly displayed.
Canon dslr, canon 75-300 f/4-5.6, 1/60 @ 5.6, manual exposure
Click image for larger view at gallery
