Fun with a macro lens!

This little guy was on the side of the house so I decided to snap a pic with my newish macro lens. If you click on the pic to enlarge it, you can see the texture of its body! Too hard to see with the naked eye since this little mantis was no more than two inches long. My hubby bought this lens for me a while ago. This was one the first pics I took with it so I could check out what it could do. It is amazing! It's too bad I don't have more time to play around with my photography. I used to be so into it. I remember the old days in the college darkroom where it was filled with the strong scent of fixer. I didn't care... I loved it. It was the anticipation of getting to develop something that you shot that was truly amazing. Seeing your photo appear onto that piece of paper was exhilarating. Black and white photography was my favorite class in college... scary, but oh so true. I remember the many hours in the darkroom trying to get the perfect print. There was one experience in the darkroom that I can never forget though... an interesting one... I remember the first time I had to put my film onto a reel and it was truly hard! I was in this little closet of a room and feeling quite claustrophobic. It was pitch black and my fingers were fumbling to try to line up the film onto the reel... my heart was pounding and I could feel the sweat beading on my forehead as I was getting more and more frustrated. After about a half hour in there, I finally was able to get the darn thing onto the reel, but I ruined that roll. I had tried so hard to get it on correctly that the repetitive motion of putting the film on and taking it off the reel, I had mangled the film... lol. It was a learning mistake, but luckily after that it was a breeze. I was in and out of there within minutes.