This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American
As you know, I photograph ants. Lots of them. There's good reason for this, aside from my formal training as an ant biologist. Ants and other social insects make fascinating subjects. Their social habits parallel our own enough, perhaps, to allow us the illusion of relating to the insects. In ants, we see a little bit of ourselves.
Yet photographing arthropods as societies carries the same aesthetic challenges as photographing crowds of people. A sea of bodies can look like just so much soup, a messy tangle of detail without any salient features to grab our interest. Consider a clump of fire ants:
Is the viewer supposed to see anything in particular? I'm not sure. It's just a mess of fire ants.
On supporting science journalism
If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
Contrast the fire ant slurry to another image of a related species, a southern thief ant:
Here, a single individual (at center left; I shouldn't have to point her out!) emerges in color and definition from her sisters. I find this image considerably more accessible.
This leads me to one of my photographic axioms: Follow a single individual even when composing images of large groups.
Sometimes, a candidate stands out on its own, as in these desert termites:
Other times, the key individual is perhaps more subtle, but separable based on color and position. For me, the yellow bee facing upward at center left is the anchor of this image:
Sometimes, choosing the key individual is a matter of focus:
I had already been photographing ants for several years before I realized I was subconsciously composing images this way. Paradoxically, it seems to work. An effective strategy to photograph sociality is to emphasize the individuality of the constituents.
