PWI Photography

Good Afternoon and Welcome to a Sunday Post!

Been pretty busy over the weekend doing things with the Minister for War & Finances. Gardening as well and a little lawn mowing along with a night out for dinner too. Been a decent weekend.

Posting some pics back from the other week at the Baldivis Children's Forest event where the last things I saw were these 2 moths making more moths. Couldn't resist and I did say thank you and sorry to them! LOL
Both pics are stacked images taken hand held, manually focused and manually bracketed. Then processed, layered and stacked in PS.
First image is made up of 12 shots and second is made up of 7 shots to create their final images.

Olympus EM1Mk3 body, M.Zuiko f3.5 2:1 90mm macro lens, Godox V1 flash with Godox spreader dome and Cygnustech diffuser

1/200 - f9 - iso 200 - manually set flash with an output of 1/64 + 0.2

Hope you like

That is me for this week. Back again midweek, if my brain isn't fried, with more to share. Until then, Happy Snapping! :-)

TGIF! Welcome to the Weekend and a Friday Night Post!

Been a week of brain draining as we learn the new software package at work. One week down and 3 more to go. I have had NO desire to look at a screen or sit at a computer all week hence the lack of posts.

Tonight though, I am here to share a little something something from the other week. I was out with the Baldivis Children's Forest group again for an adult evening in the reserve. A lovely evening of weather and finally got to see the larger huntsman come out. I found a little orb weaver that was moulting and decided to get a few shots of it. It was a little bit "spray and pray" to get a shot as it was moving in the wind a fair bit. But it paid off with this final shot.
When spiders get to the point of being too big for their skin, they moult out of it into a new one. How good woudl that be LOL!
Hope you like!

That is me for now. Back Sunday with more to share. Until then, Happy Snapping! :-)

Good Afternoon and Welcome to a Sunday Post.

It's been absolutely flat out in my world and no signs of slowing up just yet either. Work is impacting heavily with shutdowns and training doing my head in. Lots of illness through the team too with some horrible respiratory thing droppingthem like flies. I am doing my best to dodge that one!

Gorgeous weather here over the weekend and I managed to get out for an hour or 2 in a local reserve. Not much aroudn atm and this is a normal trend for this time of year. I decided to focus back ont he Drosera plants, sticky sundews, and looking for the Setecoris species or Drosera bugs. These guys move freely through the modified, sticky trap leaves of the plants and help by cleaning away the detritus of decayed insects and pooping nitrogen into the plant. Today I found a few and then I saw this........
A little crab spider, Thomisidae, possibly Australomisidea species, was hunting the bugs and had just caught one. Was stoked to find it and snapped of a bunch of shots. This a bit of a dirty 8 image stack of it.
Hope you like. I have more to go through yet!

That is me for today. I will be back mid week with more to share. Until then, Happy Snapping and have a great rest of your Sunday. and Happy Snapping! :-)

Go the Roosters!!

TGIF! Welcome to the Weekend, a Friday Post and a Long Weekend in WA!

Great week done and dusted. Illness taking out a lot of people at work with this late flu that s hit but most people doing the right thing and staying home. Kings Birthday long weekend here so its going to be one of relaxing, out to some local markets and some walks in the bush reserves!

Sunday saw me take off for a brief period down at my local beach looking for a coupel of speices. I posted speculifer on Wednesday and tonight its Maratus speciosus. Whilst I didn't get a dance shot, I was using the time to really tune in my Cygnustech diffuser and utilise my white diffusion umbrella for the full sun, white beach sand location. The combination was better than hoped for. The second pic is straight off of the card with absolutely nothing done to it by me. This gives a really good idea of the light I am getting from my set up, my settings and my manually set flash output.
Em1Mk3 body - f3.5 M.Zuiko 90mm 2:1 lens - 1/200 - f9 - iso 200 - Godox V1 flash set to 14mm wide angle with the Godox spreader dome and Cygnustech diffuser with an output of 1/64. A white studio umbrella was placed over the scene to soften the sunlight.
4x image stack taken fully manually for the portrait shot and straight out off the card jpeg single image.

That is me for now. Have a great weekend and see you Sunday with more to share. Until then, Happy Snapping! :-)

Good Afternoon and Welcome to a Mid-Week Post!

Busy week yet again and plenty going on in my home! Had a busy day Sunday making my annual cumquat marmalade that my little citrus tree decided to give me a bumper crop for. It took me over 2.5 hours preparing the little buggers ready to cook. Sunday was marmalade day and today we popped the first jar. Deeeee-liscious!

Once that was done I headed down to the local beach access track and went looking for some old friends. Spider friends that is and found both Maratus speculifer and Maratus speciosus. Tonight's pic is a little male speculifer, or black mirror peacock spider. These are insanely difficult to get to sit still, and I was wrangling him with one hand, shooting with the other and maneuvering my diffusion umbrella in between. Well worth the effort and patience to finally get him almost looking at the lens and firing off a series of a dozen shots to create this final image.
12x image stacked shot - manually focused and bracketed
Olympus Em1Mk2 body with the M.Zuiko f3.5, 2:1 lens
1/200 - f9 - iso 200 - V1 Godox flash manually set at 1/64 output at 14mm setting, with the Godox spreader dome and Cygnustech diffusion system.
Processed, layered and stack in PS to create the final image.
Hope you like!

That is me for now. Back Friday with more to share. Until then, Happy Snapping! :-)

Good Afternoon and Welcome to a Sunday Post.

Was a busy week last week and ended with me volunteering on Friday night for an adult session, night stalk, in the Baldivis Children's Forest. Was good to be out in the dark and even the rain held off, mostly! That was my first one and I was finding my way working in a team. I am usually leading or working between groups of shooters helping out, so it was a change and I will adapt. Weather had held a lot of things off, but we still saw a couple of really cool things which is a segue into tonight's pic.

I came across a little grass blue butterfly that was sleeping in the rain on one of the daisy flower stalks. Shared it with some others and then hurriedly fired a few shots off. Would love to have spent a little more time with this one but happy I got to show people things.

That is me tonight. I have been down the beach dunes this afternoon, so I have pics to share from that too. So, until next time, Happy Snapping! :-)

Good Afternoon and Welcome to a Sunday Post!

Was abusy busy week last week hence no posting, and the weekend was busy too. I presented a Macro Workshopp at the Photowest 2026 event hosted by the GEM Photography group in the Helena Valley yesterday afternoon. It was a brilliant location, with excellent ammenities and a fantastic group of about 20 people that sat through the session. We then had a hands on session with some incredible captive subjects from Louise and her daughter from Butterflies Minibeasts and more to practice what we learnt in the talk. Thank you to ALL involved with a big thanks to Stephen and Stuart from the GEM Camera club, Louise and her daughter for the incredible array of subjects and ALL of the participants yesterday. I really enjoyed it immensely. If you are reading this, please feel free to reach out if you have further questions via messenger. I will pass on the promised info tonight via email to the GEM president to email out to you all.

A great day had today too with lots of things happening. I decided this afternoon when we got home to play in the garden and mow lawns (weeds mostly!) And I kinda found a peacock spider on the fence! Camera was at hand, a few shots, a bit of watching him and back to the work. This is the common peacock Maratus pavonis and I have an annual colony in my gardens here at home. This little guy was working his way along the fence looking to attract a female, that I couldn't find for looking. I will harass these guys later in the year and grab a few late season dance shots hopefully. They will be down in the lawn area by then. Pretty healthy population to be honest.
Single shot, 1/200 - f9 - iso 200 - flash manual set at 1/64 + 0.4 and diffused with a Cygnustech diffusion system

That is me for tonight. Back Mid - Week with more to share. Until then, Happy Snapping! :-)

Good Evening and Welcome to a Sunday Post!

Busy weekend with family things to do and stuff around home. Weather was insanely gorgeous too. No camera time but much enjoyed time out with my wife and one of the sons. A bit of this, a bit of that, a gorgeous pub lunch yesterday. Bit of car repairs today and got the ute back on the road after a few little issues resolved. Bit of gardening too. I will be making cumquat marmalade next week I think based on the fruit on that little tree! Was good all round
Busy week ahead as we begin intensive training for a new computerised maint management system starting tomorrow through to go live in October. Going to be so head screwing!

Tonight I wanted to showcase a bit of the journey of Maratus hunting that I, and many others, do. It starts in the off season with ideas of places to go and then into google maps or google earth and start looking for green zones and reserves. Then make a list and start workign our way through the spots when the season starts. This year my mission is to work on areas within 45-60 minutes from home, in spaces between 2 known species, looking for transitions and/or short range endemics. So far over the last few weeks or so, I have done 2 tracks of about a kilometre long each and stumbled into a new spot last Sunday.
So the Paj is my favourite tool. I can get this offroad and into some spots that some others cant get to. Being very mindful of any signage for dieback too. If it's sign posted, then its a no go for me. I wash my boots in a mix of water and metho before and after any walks too. Found a good little pull over in here to set up from and into the bush. It was swamp ground, which is common here in WA, and it was bordered by eucalypt, acacia, hibertia and then into swamp banksia and tea tree (melaleuca). I didnt venturte too far into the wet stuff. Even with my snake gaiters on I wasn't keen for a tiger snake confrontation. I edged my way around the sloping bank to the low ground checking near the eucalypts. A good spot to always check for Maratus. I saw several species of other jumping spiders and of course the mating scarab beetles. I then caught site of somethign else. About 4mm amongst the leaf litter was the second pic. Now I have a pretty good idea what this is already, I am hoping not, but I think I will be left disappointed. It's all good though and I will be back to confirm. You never know sometimes.
Want to have a guess at what species of Maratus this could be? It's a penultimate juvenile male. So next moult is coloured adult. Drop your guess in the comments!

Hope that little insight gives you some idea of my state of mind. Weird people doing weird things! LOL
Have a great rest of your Sunday and until next time, Happy Snapping! :-)

TGIF! Welcome to the Weekend and a Friday Night Post

Busy week as usual and still got this head congestion hanging on. Seems to be a thing with several people at work with it. Ergo, some bug monkey brought it into work! You would think we would have learnt some things about contagious periods and how not to spread a virus by now.

Tonight's pic is another of the scarab beetles but this time one eating instead of fornicating! I was interested in the bi-colouring from the light angle and was pleased to get it in camera. Usually, or often, the flash will make them the one green colour from the directional light. I was shooting a double decker with the female almost brow-purple due to the light angle but they did the atomic drop on me never to be seen again!

That is it for now. Back Sunday with more hopefully. Until then, have a great weekend and Happy Snapping! :-)

Good Afternoon and Welcome to a Mid-Week Post!

Well, the rain hit again today and it has been wet. Lots of flooding on the roads and a bit of the thunder and lightning. Was a day spent at work, so I did not care. The new native gardens I have had installed at work are loving it, so it was a good thing.

Today's pic is either the same guy or another male Servaea species of jumping spider that I happened along on the weekend whilst tinkering on Sunday. These guys are quite large, so I noticed it jumping along my fence line in the old garden stakes I have stowed away there. Ran in for the camera and fired off some shots of him to fill the gap of not being out much over the last fortnight. Hope you like him!
Very small 2x shot stack due to him not stopping moving and settings were 1/200, f11, iso 200, flash manual output at 1/64 +0.4, diffused with the CJ diffuser system. Cropped about 30% because I was able to get closer, but not as close as I wanted!

That is me today. See you again Friday with a new post. Till then, Happy Snapping! :-)