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Thrifty Thursday: A Jar Full of Toads

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


Thrifty Thursdays feature photographs taken with equipment costing less than $500.

[Apple iPhone 4s - $300]

Eye of Newt? Wing of Bat? Jar of Toads?


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Whichever you wish to photograph, the image can be made more dramatic with backlighting. For this shot I placed a simple desk lamp behind the specimen jar, lined up my iPhone on the other side, and snapped away.

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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