Sometimes Mother Nature helps with Development; this week, I’ve been able to finish the series of the Small White. This time, I didn’t receive a kit with eggs, caterpillars, and pupae, as with the Large White; the Small White butterflies decided to use the cabbage plants in my garden to lay their eggs themselves.
The last couple of weeks, I learned a valuable lesson while taking care of the Large White caterpillars; it’s not very easy to determine if vegetables are really organic and pesticide-free. In fact, even organic products can be a big risk for insects like caterpillars. Something that really worries me.
Yes! The series of the Large White butterfly is finished. It was very interesting to follow their development, but I’m also somehow happy it’s done. Taking care of caterpillars and documenting their growth turned out to be more difficult than I expected.
The animal species I’ve photographed so far for Development were either classic pets or species that are not native to the Netherlands. The difficulty with our ‘own’ animals is that many of them are protected by law, and you are not allowed to keep them in captivity. Fortunately, I found a native species that I […]
A while ago, I wrote a blog about the Giant prickly stick insect eggs I´ve bought. What looked easy – you buy some eggs online, wait until they hatch, and take pictures of the little animal – turned out to be a bigger challenge than I thought. First of all, you can’t take for granted […]
This week, after a few weeks of summer break, I could finally start with a new series for Development. This is the first reptile species, Hermann’s tortoise. It’s also a new chapter in growth rate. Where, for example, canaries grow very quickly, and the challenge is to not miss out on any important stages of […]
I’m always looking for new species to photograph for Development. Sometimes I go to a breeder to do the photo shoot on location, but it can also be more convenient to breed a species myself. That way, it’s easier to combine the project with other commercial assignments. A while ago, I found an ad on […]
Lately, I’ve been working on photographing and selecting as many different animals as possible. I started with mammals and have already added fish, birds, and a snail species to the project. I hope that I can add a reptile and amphibian species as well soon. But I would also like to document the growth and […]
Last week, I was able to finish another series for Development: the growth of a baby canary into a real bird. It’s hard to imagine, but at only three weeks old, these little guys already look just like an adult bird, and it’s hard to tell who the parents are and who the chicks are. […]
It all started with a post from one of my friends on an aquarium forum. Now, a few weeks later, I’m the proud owner of three Lepidodactylus lugubris or Mourning gecko ladies. They are really fun little creatures, with a very extraordinary characteristic; they are parthenogenetic. This means that they can more or less clone […]