Craig Loechel

Craig Loechel Photographer with over a decade of experience. Specializing in Macro Photography focusing on sharing the unseen with the world in a positive light.

Happy world Bee Day Here is a tiled pic of some of the Native Bees from around Albury Wodonga i have Photographed. If yo...
19/05/2025

Happy world Bee Day

Here is a tiled pic of some of the Native Bees from around Albury Wodonga i have Photographed.

If you would like to view them as single zoomable high resolution images feel free to follow the link below to my Flickr Bee Album.

197602498@N04/albums/72177720326235482" rel="ugc" target="_blank">https://www.flickr.com/photos/197602498@N04/albums/72177720326235482

The female spider that crawled out from under my washing machine.One from the Orb Weaver family and within the Larinia g...
19/05/2025

The female spider that crawled out from under my washing machine.

One from the Orb Weaver family and within the Larinia genus I suspect

Image made with her on picture frame glass suspended over something black.

222 images included in the Assembled focus stack loaded in as SLAB files 6x37

Location , Wodonga , VIC , Australia 🇦🇺

Helicon Focus Pro
Adobe PS
Topaz Labs Denoise AI

---- Olympus EM1 Mkii
---- OM SYSTEM M.Zuiko Digital ED 90mm F3.5 Macro IS PRO
---- Hand held Focus Bracket
---- Godox V1 O
---- CJ Diffuser V2 + CJ Lens Hood

©Craig Loechel

Have a nice day

Hand Held Focus Bracket. Yet to have a confirmed ID female. Ventral View Location , Wodonga , VIC , Australia 🇦🇺Helicon ...
19/05/2025

Hand Held Focus Bracket.

Yet to have a confirmed ID female. Ventral View

Location , Wodonga , VIC , Australia 🇦🇺

Helicon Focus
Adobe PS
Topaz Labs Denoise AI

----- Olympus EM1 Mkii

----- OM SYSTEM M.Zuiko Digital ED 90mm F3.5 Macro IS PRO

----- Hand held Focus Brackets

----- Godox V1O

----- CJ Diffuser V2 + CJ Lens Hood

If you enjoyed this you may like my bitey things album

©Craig Loechel

I am looking forward to seeing the natives emerge after this Winter. This image titled Dysfunctional Family made the top...
19/05/2025

I am looking forward to seeing the natives emerge after this Winter.

This image titled Dysfunctional Family made the top 10 and I made the top 1% of Photographers. That means I was top Photographer along with many others I see in the top 1%.

:D These things I am proud of and it gives me a bit more spark to keep going.

Sending out the Bat-signalI am not saying this spider thinks she is Batman...But I have not seen her and Batman together...
19/05/2025

Sending out the Bat-signal

I am not saying this spider thinks she is Batman...

But I have not seen her and Batman together.

Araneus circulissparsus ( Speckled Orb Weaver )

If you ask me the binomial should be Batman spider....

This is a spider. Thats right , somewhere in there is a spider. The Genus they are in is called Poltys. They are members...
19/05/2025

This is a spider. Thats right , somewhere in there is a spider.

The Genus they are in is called Poltys. They are members of the Very large and interesting Orb Weaver family. At night they build a web for hunting and by day they blend in extremely well on their host tree just acting like they are part of it.

Camouflage at its best.

They are quite variable and until I Photographed this one was under the impression we did not have them in our region.

This particular female was around the size of a grain of rice.

She's a man eater , What more can I say?Praying Mantis have always been a challenge for my style of shooting images beca...
19/05/2025

She's a man eater , What more can I say?

Praying Mantis have always been a challenge for my style of shooting images because I want depth. And I usually achieve this with focus stacks.

I found evidence this girl was nearing the end. She had made a nice sized egg sac in a butterfly bush and also she was in no real hurry for dancing around like they usually do.

If you look close you can see some kind of organic material on her eye also.

Here is a video that shows what they usually do to me.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DBVtRiTvQtt/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

And here is a link to show her in a high res view.

197602498@N04/54375809921/in/datetaken/" rel="ugc" target="_blank">https://www.flickr.com/photos/197602498@N04/54375809921/in/datetaken/

This was an amazing find. Usually these retreat pretty fast back to the messy funnel kind of a web they make but for som...
19/05/2025

This was an amazing find.

Usually these retreat pretty fast back to the messy funnel kind of a web they make but for some reason this

Badumna insignis (Black House Spider) sat for me which allowed to grab some very special images.

Close up reveals so much hidden detail and color I never imagined would be there. I spent a few minutes collecting for focus stacks and then I thanked her and left her be.

These images where collected with her in situ.

An introduced Natal Cellar Spider.The female once she has bred and laid her eggs will carry the egg sac filled will her ...
19/05/2025

An introduced Natal Cellar Spider.

The female once she has bred and laid her eggs will carry the egg sac filled will her unborn brood until they hatch out. The hatching process is far from quick from what I witnessed.

The young will stay with Mum for a while also before heading off to be the Daddy Long Legs we call them.

Here are 2 images of 2 separate females. 1 shows the young have hatched but not yet out and moving around.

A very pretty female zygometis xanthogaster The prettiest Thomisidae I have seen in the flesh. She was right up top of m...
13/01/2025

A very pretty female zygometis xanthogaster
The prettiest Thomisidae I have seen in the flesh. She was right up top of my Butterfly bush and if it was not for the fact that I pulled down a branch to have a look I would have never known. Last year I seen them in white. I never knew they could be this color but they can change from white to yellow or green depending on how they need to blend in for ambush hunting and surviving.
To gather the images I used manual hand held focus stacking.
Here are my settings
1/80th ||| F11 ||| ISO 200 ||| Flash @ 1/64 +0.4
I bought her into my living room and made some shots of her. She will be placed back in my garden where I found her very soon at present she is hanging out on a flower.
I used some purple felt for the background.
Location , Wodonga , VIC , Australia 🇦🇺
Helicon Focus
Adobe PS
Topaz Labs Denoise AI
🔫 Olympus EM1 Mkii
🔎 OM SYSTEM M.Zuiko Digital ED 90mm F3.5 Macro IS PRO
🍕 Hand held Focus Stack
⚡ Godox V1 O
⛺ CJ Diffuser V2 + CJ Lens Hood
©Craig Loechel
Have a nice day

The dysfunctional family portraitLocation , Wodonga , VIC , Australia 🇦🇺Australian Native Bees - (Lipotriches)Helicon Fo...
15/12/2024

The dysfunctional family portrait
Location , Wodonga , VIC , Australia 🇦🇺
Australian Native Bees - (Lipotriches)
Helicon Focus
Adobe PS
Adobe LR
Topaz Labs Denoise AI
🔫 Olympus EM1 Mkii
🔎 OM SYSTEM M.Zuiko Digital ED 90mm F3.5 Macro IS PRO
🍕 Hand held Focus Bracket of 99 images
⚡ Godox V1O
⛺ CJ Diffuser V2 + CJ Lens Hood
©Craig Loechel
Have a nice day

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