Praying Mantis invites Grasshopper to Lunch

[OMP Ron]

In the first Photo the Mantis is giving me one of those "Hey what are you lookin' at?" looks. But then he goes back to his lunch of Grasshopper Brains in the second Photo. I guess it's good to be a Praying Mantis and bad to be a Flying Grasshopper!

 

[Jeff15]

Well caught..........

 

[K9Kirk]

Nice pics. Maybe he was thinking, "You're next!"

 

[OMP Ron]

Thanks for the kind commenst, and when it comes to predators these guys are just about unparalleled. By the way don't pick them up as they will bite!

 

[Flying Panda]

Good set Ron. I think, in image #1, the Mantis is asking you if you want some.

 

[RVT1K]

Was the mantis/grasshopper superimposed over the background? Something looks odd to me.

 

[OMP Ron]

Sharp eye RVT1K, the background and the Mantis were hard to distinguish so I cut out the Mantis and grasshopper, lowered the contrast and brightness, added a little Gaussian blur and then pasted the Mantis and Grasshopper back in the same position. Technically cheating but it was too hard to distinguish what was going on the other way.

 

[OMP Ron]

Good set Ron. I think, in image #1, the Mantis is asking you if you want some.

Thanks Panda, I have always been fascinated by these creatures and this year we seem to have bumper crop and according to Google the Ancient Egyptians believed certain insects such as the praying mantis acted as guides along one´s journey into eternal life.

 

[RVT1K]

Sharp eye RVT1K, the background and the Mantis were hard to distinguish so I cut out the Mantis and grasshopper, lowered the contrast and brightness, added a little Gaussian blur and then pasted the Mantis and Grasshopper back in the same position. Technically cheating but it was too hard to distinguish what was going on the other way.

Not cheating at all. We all have different ways of getting to the same places.

Almost any shot I have ever shown anyone has had some tweaking done to it, typically a little adjustments to shadows, highlights, contrast, saturation, and sharpness using PS Elements. But I do have a friend (who I got started into photography!!) who seems to have philosophical issues with any post-processing and everything of his is straight from the camera.

 

[OMP Ron]

Sharp eye RVT1K, the background and the Mantis were hard to distinguish so I cut out the Mantis and grasshopper, lowered the contrast and brightness, added a little Gaussian blur and then pasted the Mantis and Grasshopper back in the same position. Technically cheating but it was too hard to distinguish what was going on the other way.

Not cheating at all. We all have different ways of getting to the same places.

Almost any shot I have ever shown anyone has had some tweaking done to it, typically a little adjustments to shadows, highlights, contrast, saturation, and sharpness using PS Elements. But I do have a friend (who I got started into photography!!) who seems to have philosophical issues with any post-processing and everything of his is straight from the camera.

I have always enjoyed altering or enhancing to improve the quality of photos and I think it certainly has a place in photography. That being said though I think we do have to come up with a photo-video coding system that lets you know if a photo or especially video has been altered. I actually just read an article about how they are concerned that altered videos and sound bites will be used to influence the next election and that worries me, its one thing to colorize an old b&W photo or remove some wrinkles from someone's face, but using the software for malicious purposes needs to have some kind of check put on it.