Description
Choose the size and medium for print and frame. Contact us for details. Highly stylised photograph featuring Cytaea plumbeiventris (Salticidae) Jumping spider art with pink bokeh background. Photography prints available now. Copyright Bridgette Gower 2020.
Salticidae Prints – Jumping Spiders – Spider Art – Salticidae Photos – Spider Print
Jumping Spider Art – Salticidae Prints – Jumping Spider Print
The Story behind Disco Bugs
2020 was the year I knew I wanted to create an idea I could share with the world. I started to conceptualise a photography style and experimented with many different lighting and in-camera visual effects. The visual concept of Disco Bugs was eventually realised.
You see, in a former life, I spent a lot of time in nightclubs around the world. I was a touring DJ in the Naughties. (2000’s) and perhaps the look of this series has been inspired by those times of pretty lights and laser-beams as we danced for hours in a place of indulgence and love. Many of you who are my age will know exactly what I am talking about, the beautiful moment of time we shared.
With my evolving journey into a career in photography, I found joy, excitement, and some kind of affinity with the miniature world of insects and spiders and in particular, a tiny species of spider. As a child, I knew jumping spiders as the tiny little brown harmless spiders that we would sometimes see inside the house or in the car. My dad called them money spiders. So, from a young age I had a positive experience with them.
Combining the inspiration from my nightclub and DJ career with macro photography, comes this new collection of styled images called ‘Disco Bugs’. This will be an extended range all incorporating this bokeh-filled background.
I’ve spent the last 9 months, perfecting the style and I finally am ready to present it to you! All the images are actual photos. There has been some minor photoshopping to clean up some dirt and flyaway dust or web on the flowers or animals faces and bodies.
The first collection will be this series of 10 Jumping Spiders, and thus will be the Salticidae Collection, as a part of the Disco Bugs Series.
All have been photographed in my backyard after our landlord came to trim our Jasmine trees and went a bit overboard. The next day I went exploring in the branches that had been removed and I discovered quite a few jumping spiders in the man-made disaster. My animal rescue instincts kicked in and I proceeded to re-home a few at different parts of the garden. All these species wander from plant to plant, so this was a suitable plan. Of course, when I found a good individual suitable for a photo shoot I would place it on the flower or stem in my make-shift outdoor photo studio.
I then proceeded to hold the flower-laden spider in one hand and use my camera in the other, and I would take a few shots. It required a lot of patience and arm strength! Once I felt I got some good images, I would move the individual spider to a plant and thanked them for being my model and wished them well. Sometimes I would see them on the same plant for a few days… but then lose track of them as they moved on.
I’ll be adding to the collection in 2021 with a range of other insects and spiders. Stay tuned!
You can check out more stories of my photography journey in my Blogs.
Salticidae Prints – Jumping Spiders – Spider Art – Salticidae Photos – Spider Print
Jumping Spider Art – Salticidae Prints – Jumping Spider Print
Photographs taken with Olympus OMD EM1 ii with CygnusTech Diffuser
