Life of Wry

This is what happens when good subjects happen to bad photographers.

Or to earnest photographers with inadequate equipment.

This is a huge spider in our front yard (though not as huge as this picture would have you believe).  While it is a little hard to tell, she is sitting contentedly in her web munching on a bug (the small grey mass). All had gone exactly according to her plan: she had spun an immense web (maybe she worked on it all night?); patiently waited for a bug to come along and unwittingly entangle itself in the stickiness (which happened); and was now happily eating a quiet, early morning breakfast in the warm sunlight.

Until I came along and wanted to take a picture of her with my phone. Which I thrust right into her face.  Which apparently made her feel shy..or maybe annoyed.

She began to fidget.

I wasn’t able to get much of a shot–as you can see–so I went into the house to get a better camera, and by the time I returned–not 48 seconds later–she’d gathered up her bug and was scurrying off to eat it in the privacy of her hideout leaf.   She was still there, last time I checked.

I took the picture anyway.  My better camera picked up the web’s fantastic architecture, the sun glistening off its delicate strands, dew droplets here and there, some bug remnants… but, alas, no spider.  It was a nice enough picture, but was missing its main subject.  So, I opted for this one, instead, as my picture-of-the-day.

…however, to appreciate it, you have to use a little imagination: 1) she IS sitting in the center of a very well-designed, intact web; 2) she IS eating a bug; 3) she’s only about three and a half inches from my Blackberry (which is why she looks so humongous and like she could single handedly eliminate the entire population of downtown Manhattan); 4) that rock in the background is about two feet in diameter and is about four feet away.. just for perspective.

It’s a cool photo, too..  just missing a few details.