I went out again on the weekend and took a few more bug shots for the Weekly Challenge. I found some more grasshoppers on a reddish-orange gladiolus. Here are a couple of the shots I took.
Bug On A Bloom
Two Bugs On A Bloom
I have recently been reading about the use of color contrast to bring more focus to a subject. I think the color of the flower really helps the green grasshoppers stand out better. What do you think? Here is another example. A yellow hibiscus flower positioned with a bright pillow in the background.
Colorful
I also took a shot of a hornet that really liked the taste of the hummingbird food in my feeder.
What’s Down In Here?
I’ll Get A Closer Look
Payday!
I thought it might just crawl on into the feeder but it must have reached the food at this point.
Until next time —
Edward R. Myers Photography 
The level of detail on the petals of the first flower is just fantastic.
thank you so much for your comments. It is always good to have feedback from other photographers. I really enjoy looking at your work as well.
I have discovered that lowering the highlight adjustment in Lightroom will often give me more texture on objects.
Couldn’t agree more with you regarding the highlights adjustment in Lightroom. I usually find the white point in the Point Curve and the then decrease the highlights in the Basic panel. It’s amazing how much detail and texture one gets this way.
BTW, probably you already know, but there are clear signs of the release of a bug correction version of LR5 scheduled for next week. Hopefully it will iron out the problems of 5.0.
I haven’t moved to LR5 yet so I have not experienced the slowdown. I am running 4.4 and it works great. Sounds similar to problems like the ones in version 3. I upgraded my hardware and went to version 4 and things have been fine.
Beautiful!!!