All the photos in this article were photographed on the
morning of Sept. 15, 2019, at Lincoln Creek Prairie in Aurora.
W
hen I first started working with Nebraskaland as
a college student in the mid-1990s, my nickname
among at least some of the magazine staff was
"the dewy bug guy." It was completely fair. A large part of
my portfolio, such as it was, consisted of insects covered in
tiny water droplets.
At the time, my parents had recently helped me acquire
my first macro lens, and I immediately became entranced by
insects and other tiny creatures I'd mostly overlooked before.
I spent countless hours crawling through prairies, peering at
these minute wonders. Unfortunately, that enthusiasm was
tempered by the harsh reality that it cost me about 30 cents
every time I clicked the shutter on my slide film camera.
If you've ever tried to look closely at insects, you know
how difficult it is to get them to sit still. Compounding the
problem, the plants they're on are usually waving around in
the breeze. That combination means that a strong majority
of insect photo attempts result in useless, blurry images. In
today's glorious world of digital photography, those misses
are free, so who cares? As a young hobbyist photographer
shooting slide film on a budget, however, I literally couldn't
afford many of them.
The struggle was real. However,
my life hack, before I
knew to call it that, was
to restrain my insect photography
urge most days and then release it on glorious, late summer
mornings when dew covered everything on the landscape.
Not only was the light from the rising sun perfect for
photography on those mornings, but also the wind was
usually calm, or nearly so. Most importantly, the prairie was
full of lovely glittering insects that were too cold and wet to
jump, fly or crawl away from me.
I was in heaven on those dewy mornings. I could edge my
tripod and camera right up to a dragonfly or bumblebee and
The Dewy
Bug Guy
is Back
30 Nebraskaland • August-September 2021
Story and photos by Chris Helzer
