Stunning images capture beauty of insects found in springtime gardens

By Douglas Whitbread via SWNS

These stunning image capture the beauty of insects commonly found in British gardens in the Spring.

Amateur photographer, Jamie Thorpe, 45, captured these incredible shots in his own back garden after catching the insect photography bug during lockdown

Most of the insects measure just 4mm (0.15 inches), but up close, viewers can get a sense of their incredibly detailed markings.

Jamie, whose day job is a painter and decorator, said he understands why some people may consider the insects in his pictures to be menacing but maintains they are cute.

He said: “I look at them as totally cute, to be honest – the jumping spiders especially.”

“Usually when you explain the size of them as well, that they're only 4-5mm, smaller than your little finger nail, the fear seems to subside a little bit with them.”

These incredible pictures capture the beauty and horror of what everyday British insects look like under a microscope. (Jamie Thorpe via SWNS)

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Jamie, from Lowestoft, Suffolk, said though he had been taking photos for thirty years, he began snapping insects in 2020.

He said: “I just bought a new camera and set it up before the first lockdown happened.

“I’ve always been interested in insects, but I just started taking pictures with the macro lens of anything I could find, and that naturally leads you towards insects.”

Jamie said the hardest insect he has tried to photograph are jumping spiders, which are often found on heathland and farmland sites.

He said: “The jumping spiders are fairly hard to photograph as they don’t stay still for very long.

“But the trick with a lot of insects is to get them in the evenings or early mornings.

“So some of the shots are actually taken at night as then the insects don’t move around quite as much, rather than photographing them in the middle of the day when they would be really active.”

Jamie said he was most proud of a recent bumble bee photograph that he took in March.

He said: “I was exceptionally lucky with the bumblebee portrait.

“That was about three weeks ago, and I went out on a cold day, and the bumblebee was pretty dormant.”

Jamie said he’s never been bitten by an insect, but he’s had to keep his wits about him when taking photographs of hornets.

He said: “None of them are deadly, but I would say with the wasp shots and hornet shots, you’ve always got a chance of being stung by one of them.”