Best Shot Monday - A beautiful bug

I love bugs.

Well, I like a lot of them - from a distance - for the most part.

I mentioned previously about my spent time in Latvia, such a beautiful, lush country; and after how living in a concrete jungle for so long even the life of the bugs intruiged me.

Even the bugs were beautiful when I slowed down.

I've been trying to slow down again. Take in the beauty of *now*. It's so hard to do. Saturday I spent a few hours at the botanical gardens {by myself} with my camera. Really, I'm not one to take pictures of flowers - no matter how beautiful; but when you're at a garden...well...

And then I found this guy.

 Let me tell you, it was abiding and patient enough to let me snap off several pictures, manually trying to get it in focus with only my 50mm lens and a macro filter. I had to get pretty close. My sweet little best shot.

Shortly after that I ran into this hungry little caterpillar. I actually held the camera up and hoped for the best.

Then I discovered his brother {or is it sister} By the way, this particular larvae will develop into a Monarch butterfly some day.

When I uploaded the file to LightRoom, I noticed the caterpillar's fan club hitching a ride on the back of the leaf. Are those aphids?

And if that's not enough, as I pulled my camera away, I noticed I was surrounded by a little band of Box Elder bugs gazing up at me. Okay, maybe they weren't quite gazing up at me, but they were out in full force. This one came around for a closer look, (after all, I'm pretty close to them)

So I moved in for a closer look.

Sometimes it's just good to get down and see the beauty in the world from a bugs point of view.

Maybe there are more beautiful beetles in the world - with armored coats of rainbow; but often, they have a looming presence of "creepyness". Not something that lures the faint-of heart into bug appreciation.  Ladybugs, on the other hand - they evoke a sense of beauty and perfection in the simplest, if not the smallest form. And their little round bodies are inviting to almost any toddler without much drama. I think Ladybugs are just beautiful.



Your beautiful best shot?