The brood

Seems my salamander eggs image for this category wasn’t weird enough so I’m upping the ante with this lovely spider momma. It’s an oldie, taken about a decade ago when I still lived in NH. I found her on the top edge of my shed and dashed around finding my gear so I could get this shot of her with egg sac and that cloud of babies overhead. Spiderlings are wonderful and house spiders like this one typically tend to them for a while until they disperse on their own. I think I remember reading that they have tiny yolks they feed from until they’re mature enough to begin spinning and trapping prey on their own. Of course many don’t live (hungry hummingbirds love them) and so mom lays hundreds of eggs at a time.

As a lover of spiders I find them intriguing and they have more behaviors than people think. This image always makes me smile, thinking of the babies ballooning away on wisps of silk to make their way in the world.

Specific Feedback Requested

It is very shallow DOF and I couldn’t get much more due to the lens I was using, but I think it works. I was VERY careful to focus her head, jaws and legs. There are some babies in the plane of focus, but not all of them. The wall is reasonably OOF IMO. Maybe there isn’t enough black for a monochrome shot, but there wasn’t much color either. Opinions? The background is flashing around the shed roof. Should I blur it more??

Technical Details

Is this a composite: No
Olympus E-30 DSLR
Vintage Olympus 90mm f/2 macro
Can’t remember f-stop, but probably 11 or 16 (the sweet spot for that lens)
1/8 second, Aperture Priority, +2 ev, ISO 200
Tripod

Lr processed for clarity & contrast, sharpening & a little NR. Cropped some off bottom. Curves adjustment for maximum pop.

@the.wire.smith

WOW! Wonderful sharpness on the spider, and enough of the babies in focus. What an interesting composition and the BG is very interesting. B/W seems perfect for this.

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As an arachnophile like you, I find this really interesting. Do you think she’s tidying up an empty egg sac, or does it contain a new brood? I’m fine with the BW too, but am curious whether the adult’s colours match those of the babies you have also in clear focus. Very neatly composed too.

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Thanks @Diane_Miller & @Mike_Friel - this is one of my favorite pictures and I’m glad it works beyond the fact that I like it.

I think the egg sac she’s on is a fresh one. There were often several in or around the web of an individual spider. I’d have to check, but I think once the kids vacate mom eats the sac. I don’t remember there being tons of empty ones around. The babies have the same coloring as mom - sort of mottled tans, grays and blacks.

Kris, this is quite a photographic catch, with mom, all the little ones and the big egg?? sack!

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Kristen, you really did a fine job capture this large family of spiders.

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This is really nice. You have produced a very unique image that caught my eye (darn web :slight_smile: ). I like this one as presented…Jim

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Thanks everyone. It was the right place at the right time with this little scene. Where I live now (northern Wisconsin) we have tons of marbled orb weavers on the house & garage and I’ll have to see about another mommy & me shot with those girls. Oh and we have dolomedes scriptus (big fishing spiders) that live on the dock. They’re nursery web spiders and lay eggs just under the dock boards (the adult females can reach 3 inches across with the legs). I’ve gotten a shot of a couple girls with egg sacs, but none with babies (sometimes they carry the egg sacs like wolf spiders, but don’t keep the hatchlings on their backs like wolfs do). I’d probably have to wreck the nursery web to do it, so I’ll leave them be.