Loowit ant zombie fungus (+revised)

[andy5 (Andy Harmsen)]

Revised Version

Revision 1 (latest)

What changed: Used Lightroom heal brush to remove branch in top left and white mycelium ribbon from bottom right

Added after receiving feedback from the community.

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Original Version

Weekly Challenge

Decay and Renewal

10/25/26 - 10/31/26

Critique Style: In-Depth

The photographer is looking for deeper feedback connected to their intent, creative direction, and specific questions.

Feedback Focus: Artistic + Technical

About This Image

I spend a lot of time looking for interesting invertebrates in the woods, but typically ants aren’t a fun subject since they’re so fast-moving. Lucky me, this ant and a few others under this chunk of bark had been taken over by an ophiocordyceps fungus, bursting pink bunny-ears from its thorax. I later learned this was an undescribed species of the fungus.

Why This Image?

I chose this specimen among the others I shot that day because of the dramatic pink color of the fungal fruiting body, and the way the fuzz makes this ant look almost mammalian.

What I’m Trying to Express or Explore

I’m trying to explore the strangeness hiding in places we think we know. I appreciated this scene presented a usually prohibitively-fast subject in frozen animation as the host to this fungus. The contrast of the delicate fungus overtaking the body of as robust a creature as a carpenter ant was something I wanted to highlight.

Where Feedback Would Help Most

I would like feedback on whether this image captures interest, what parts of the image if any evoke feeling and what those are, and whether any elements of the composition feel distracting.

Technical Details

Camera: SONY ILCE-7RM2
Lens: Laowa 85mm f5.6 2x macro
Shutter speed: 1/200s
ISO: 800
Flash: Fired
Aperture: f/11

Tripod/handheld: handheld, but braced on ground
Focus method: manual, held focus and slightly moved backward and forward after establishing focal plane
Filters: n/a
Technique: single shot
Conditions: overcast, dark forest
Processing: Lightroom, adjustments to saturation, temperature, and vibrance mostly. Small adjustments to contrast, sharpness

[Mark_Seaver]

Andy, decay and renewal of an animal species was not what I expected… Thanks for opening my mind. The “furriness” of the ant is fascinating, at first I was thinking spider. The details look good, although I do wish that the rear end of the ant was also sharp. Since you used flash, would it have been possible to go to a smaller aperture? The bit of stick in the upper left is slightly distracting, but when you get this close it’s hard to make a “clean” view, especially on the ground. I would suggest removing the bright white thread near the bottom right corner.

[Dennis_Plank]

This fits the weekly challenge very well, Andy, and the image is just awesome. Your focus is right where it needs to be to tell the story of what has happened to this ant and the verbal description of what’s going on in something we don’t see often is very helpful. Sometimes an image needs a few words. The image has some other features that have me wondering what’s going on and help support the idea of decay and renewal, particularly those little black balls, which I suspect are fruiting bodies of a fungus working on the wood. As for distractions, @Mark_Seaver mentioned the bright white string and I might also remove the out of focus bright circle above the ant.

Excellent work.

[Huw_Thomas]

Amazing story and image

Huw

[Jim_Zablotny]

This certainly fits the Weekly Challenge as the ant goes through the process of decomposition. The comp is fine , but I find the OOF stick pulls my eye away from the subject. Because the subject is very dead, and motionless, go for multiple images for stacking. That way, you get a much deeper DOF and you will get those fungal hyphae on the abdomen nice and crisp. Still a great photo that has a neat biological story behind it. …Jim

[system]

The original poster added a revised version of their image.