Dinner time!

We have a giant garden spider we named bub living under our carport on top of one of the lights seated in the corner. We had to photograph him the second we noticed, not only because of the perfect web he managed to weave, but also because the placement over an old light that is covered in old webs from previous tenants. It essentially looks like a monster boneyard filled with the corpses and skeletons of left over prey. Not to mention just how massive he is for a garden spider, measuring about the size of a us half dollar. It actually scares me how smart Bub is by building his web over this light since it obviously attracts hundreds of bugs everynight and he seems well aware of it. Since the framing of the light is filled with old webs, Bub is also able to trap larger prey by luring them into these old webs and then waiting as these poor bugs try to escape and tire themselves out in the process. Eventually they almost always break free and then end up in the same spot... The fresh and extremely intricate web that bub weaves every night. The only way these little guys can get out is by aggressively shaking and flying away from the light, which is exactly where Bub sets up shop every time. It's all pretty insane. The best part is, we couldn't stop joking about the obvious modeling aspirations he has since the light also works to perfectly expose him as a subject. Then the night leaves us with a perfect, all black backdrop for contrast.

In this photo, Bub managed to rope in a wasp and we caught him in the process of what I'm just gonna call "Smoking" his dinner. It was pretty intense considering that Bub got himself stung about 6 times from the wasp until it finally gave up and accepted it's fate. It was actually insane watching him wrap it up into a tiny little package of web, sling it over his back and carry it up to the center of the web while it hung down like a fish you were trying to reel in out of the water. I'm sure eventually someone is going to want to spray Bub with some kind of bug killer since he is so large and honestly pretty terrifying, but all we can do is pray that he is immune, or gets to them first... ;)

Shot on:
Sony A7iii
Vintage Minolta MD 100mm f-4 macro lens
Iso: 640
Timing: 1-400
Aperture: f-4.5


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