Into the Unknown with Alex McKerracher
Last month, in our inaugural visit Into the Unknown, we took a trip to Churchill with April Stampe to uncover the secrets behind photographing polar bears. This month, we venture forth to photograph subjects a little closer to home as we explore the world of insects, spiders, and fungi with Alex McKerracher.
Alex is a photographer from Southern Ontario whose love of nature was sparked by childhood exploration in a local conservation area. Alex’s work has been featured in Canadian Geographic and focuses on the hidden worlds within our own. A macro photographer with a love for all things big and small, Alex uses his work to highlight the significance of the natural world in all its beauty. Take a journey with him Into the Unknown and discover how he photographed a metallic sweat bee.
Photo Credit: Alex McKerracher
With a large majority of your work focused on the smaller side of nature, how do you go about scouting an area or subject that you hope to capture? Are you looking for specific habitats or seasonal indicators when searching out a species, or is your methodology a more open exploration?
When I first started doing macro photography in 2021, I had a very open-search workflow to find subjects. I try to couple macro photography with my enjoyment of hiking and being in nature so I would try to go to new spots for every macro session. This was a very fun way to get started with things, and I think it really helped me appreciate the nature around me more. The fact that I could go to almost any random spot and find beautiful, intriguing nature was quite spectacular. As I have started to become more experienced in finding subjects, I have started to build a list of ‘reliable’ places to go for photography. A good example of this would be the University of Guelph’s arboretum. It is probably my most visited location, and I have started to learn what creatures I can find there, where I can find them and when I can find them. A good example is the six-spotted tiger beetles I try to photograph every year. Another macro photographer gave me a tip about where I might be able to find them and after some searching, I was successful in locating the beetles. The next year, I went back to the same few spots where I saw them on days with similar weather conditions, and they were there again. The same thing happened the following year, and I know going into 2024 that they will be there again.
One of the downsides to visiting the same spots at the same time(s) of year is I have ended up shooting a lot of similar subjects. Going forward into 2024, I want to change my approach a bit from open-search to sessions that are more structured and researched. Ontario has some really amazing species of jumping spiders, beetles, bees, etc. that I would really enjoy sharing with people, and I need to do more research about their locations, preferred habitats and other identifying things that will help me be a bit more targeted. Some insects pollinate certain flowers more than others, some insects prefer to eat certain things, some spiders prefer certain environmental conditions, and so on. There is a lot to learn over this winter, and I am looking forward to all of the reading I have ahead of me.
Photo Credit: Alex McKerracher
Macro photography uses a unique set of equipment to capture even lighting and fine details. What does your setup look like when you set out for a day of photography and how has new equipment changed what you can capture?
The equipment I currently use is a Fujifilm X-T4 camera, a Laowa 65mm F2.8 2x macro lens, a Godox V350f, a Raynox DRC-250 for extra magnification and, lastly, a Cygnustech diffuser. This combination of gear has worked out quite well for me over the years and really hasn't changed much from what I used starting out. The first summer I did macro photography, I had the same camera and lens, but I used a Godox TT350f and a cheap over-the-lens diffuser off of Amazon. This setup worked out alright, but there were a couple big issues that really held back my images. The first was the diffuser I was using. Since it was just a flat panel that slid over my lens barrel, there was no way to contain the light from the flash and direct it all towards the panel. The cygnustech diffuser has a hood that straps over the flash and bounces all the light towards the diffusion panel. With the cheap Amazon diffuser not having a hood, I'd lose about 1 to 1 ½ stops of light, depending on the situation. The cheap diffuser also did a much worse job diffusing the light, which left my photos with noticeable glare, harsh shadows and colours that didn’t really pop. The Cygnustech, in my opinion, is the best diffuser someone could buy if they want high quality light. Lighting is the most important part of macro, more important than even the camera and lens. Compared to my cheap Amazon diffuser, the Cygnustech diffuser completely blows it out of the water with the quality of light, ease of use and portability.
The Godox TT350f was another piece of gear I felt held me back. When I was doing stacks with it, the flash wouldn’t be able to keep-up with the continuous shooting of the camera. This led to a lot of black frames, failed stacks and frustration. The main reason for this is that this specific flash uses 2 AA batteries, and they just can’t provide enough power fast enough for the flash to recycle. The V350f uses a battery similar style to the one in my X-T4, and this battery (and its more powerful output) are really the only differences between the two models. However, because this battery has better output than AA batteries, I am able to shoot stacks that consist of over 100 images without any black frames. My camera’s buffer is actually what runs out of space before the flash runs out of charge.
Macro photography often involves getting very close to a living subject. How do you balance your subject’s safety with capturing the perfect shot, and what is the significance of live subjects in the macro photography world?
When I am taking photos of these tiny subjects, I always do my best to keep disturbance to a minimum. It’s very important to me that I treat them with respect and not abuse my large (to them) human size just to get a photograph. If I am not careful, I could easily crush most of the subjects I photograph or destroy a spider's web or crush a bunch of flowers in a field for a shot. I certainly haven’t been perfect in this regard. I accidentally got a spider killed once when I found it hanging off my camera, and I put it on a web close by. Another spider came and quickly claimed it for breakfast. There have been times when I have taken 10 stacks of 50+ photos of a subject. At some point, I realized that I probably took a few too many shots and I could have been more diligent about composing well or recognizing there’s too much movement for a stack so as not to overdo it. It is a situational thing of course, but I think reflecting about how I photographed a subject and if I could have taken a different approach to get the photo is an important aspect of keeping subjects safe and disturbance to a minimum.
One of the most significant things in taking macro photos of insects is to only show living subjects. I will photograph dead ones if I find them that way, but I will not ever kill an insect or spider just for a photograph. It's a really important part of macro photography and it all comes back to respecting your subjects just like any other form of wildlife. I think most bird photographers and wildlife photographers will agree that killing a bird or moose just to take a photo of it goes far across the ethical line, even more so if the photographer presents it as living. The same goes in macro photography. These might be small subjects but they deserve the same respect as anything living life on this planet with us.
Looking at this photo specifically, how did you set up the shot, what was special about this particular subject, and why does this shot stand out to you?
Photo Credit: Alex McKerracher
I think this photo of a metallic sweat bee is one that I am most proud of because there wasn't much set-up to it. I took the shot at the University of Guelph’s arboretum in their Gosling Wildlife Garden. I was there taking photos of the bees that were pollinating these gorgeous purple flowers, and I was trying to compose a few different ways. For this photo though, once the bee landed on the flower, I gently grabbed the stem to hold it steady and then tried to get an angle where the bee's eye was towards the camera and the background was entirely filled with the flower. The flowers have fantastic leading lines towards the centre so that's where I tried to place the bee.
I ended up submitting this to the Canadian Geographic photo contest, and it received an honourable mention. This was the first time I won an award in a competition so that was really special too, and I will always have a special place in my heart for this shot.
What do you hope people get out of close-up photographs of insects, arachnids, and amphibians? How do you think macro photography bridges the gap between cute and creepy?
The number one thing I hope people will have after exploring my work is a deeper appreciation for all aspects of nature. I hope that people will change their perception of insects, spiders, fungi and all other smaller forms of nature.
Photo Credit: Alex McKerracher
I think my work helps present these creatures in a way most people are not able to see and transforms them from just a small thing flying around or just a “creepy” spider into something that can be appreciated in the same manner as other wildlife. Macro photography can reveal so many amazing and unseen details that even when something is creepy, people can’t look away because there is so much that's new to them in the image, so much that they wouldn’t notice otherwise. I don’t think my work quite bridges a gap between cute and creepy. My subjects are already cute; all I am doing is showing them in a new light.
With my work, I want to show people that bees and wasps aren’t as scary as some people think. I want to show people that jumping spiders aren’t creepy; they are adorable and incredibly curious little things with a personality. I want to introduce people to how insanely cool slime molds are and how beautiful a tiny mushroom can be. I want to show just how insane nature really is at this tiny scale. Did you know that some spiders can look almost identical to ants or beetles? Some moths can have wings that look like an owl's face. The tiger beetle I mentioned earlier runs so fast it temporarily blinds itself and has to stop moving in order to survey its surroundings again. Tiny nature is incredibly cool, and I want to show that off to people.
