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Photo Tip: Help The World See Your Hairy Fly By Using A Black Background

Compare and contrast. Zooming in for greater detail: The same fly, the same pose, the same camera settings. All I changed was the background, and the difference in the animal’s appearance between the two photographs is immense.

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American


Compare and contrast.

Zooming in for greater detail:

The same fly, the same pose, the same camera settings. All I changed was the background, and the difference in the animal's appearance between the two photographs is immense.


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Alex Wild is Curator of Entomology at the University of Texas at Austin, where he studies the evolutionary history of ants. In 2003 he founded a photography business as an aesthetic complement to his scientific work, and his natural history photographs appear in numerous museums, books and media outlets.

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