This photo of a swallowtail caterpillar is part of a series where I wanted to give insects a glamorous stage - but wanted to achieve everything in camera. In Tuscany you can still find various insects in October and temperature gives you time because insects stay torpid if you're starting very early in the morning.
Like I've already said, I had time with the still torpid caterpillar and I could use a wide-open aperture to achieve a soft bokeh and get the composition I wanted. I've used some accessories like two kinds of dimmable flashlights and some other (secret :)) materials to get this glamorous bokeh. With an open aperture, it's difficult to get everything important in focus, so the viewer can see the details of this wonderful insect.
Usually, I am trying to use as little post-processing as possible - and not to manipulate parts of the image - as I'm used to it anyway. Nature photo competitions are very picky in what to allow during post-processing. This series wasn't meant to be sent to a nature photo competition, but post-processing was limited to tonal correction, sharpening, white balancing and de-noising.
