Praying Mantis

Not too long ago, the strangest thing happened - I did a portrait shoot with a praying mantis. When there’s enough daylight in the evenings, I like to spend time in the yard, not necessarily doing work per se, but, maybe pulling a few weeds, turning the compost pile, or assessing future plans. I can be worse than a pet sometimes when it comes to tracking things into the house. In a little more than a week we found at least two praying mantises in the house, with the most recent one being on me.

I must have spent part of a Sunday morning in the yard, and returned to the sofa for lunch, when I noticed something on my shirt. It looked like a piece of straw or dead plant material that I must have picked up in the yard. But it wasn’t - it was a small praying mantis. And I knew what I had to do - photograph it!

I quickly set up an impromptu photo studio, throwing some black cloth over a chair and pulling out my camera. Since he was barely moving on my shirt, it seemed he would make the perfect subject. However, when I got him in the “studio”, he became more active and more challenging to photograph. After about a half dozen photographs, he was done with me, so I put him outside where he belonged but glad he made a pit stop along his journey so I could take his picture.