These photos are works of art — and the artists are bugs
For immediate release ‐ April 01, 2024
Contact: Jon Pishney, 919.707.8083. Images available upon request
A photographer’s innovative technique reveals the flight paths of insects in exquisitely alluring ways.
Broad-headed sharpshooter — Oncometopia orbona — filmed at 6,000 frames per second. October 2021, Raleigh NC. Photo: Xavi Bou.
By Annie Roth
Movements of flying insects make them tough to track, but technological advances and some creative thinking have allowed Spanish photographer Xavi Bou to do just that. After spending 10 years concentrating on birds in flight for his Ornithographies project, he shifted his focus to bugs.
For Entomographies, he uses high-speed video footage taken by Adrian Smith, an entomologist at [the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and] North Carolina State University, to decode and document insect trajectories. Then Bou selects multiple frames and merges them into single images that convey the rapid motions through space and time of one or more animals.
Read the full article on the National Geographic website
For more information about our upcoming activities, conservation news and groundbreaking research, follow @NaturalSciences on Instagram and Facebook.