I live across the street from a yard where a colony of ladybugs have lived for a long long time. We're in a canyon, so even though this is northern California, it does get chilly (well, for us anyway... it drops down to the upper 30s here around New Years for awhile).
Even ladybugs get cold, and as long as I can remember every winter they congregate on my neighbor's house and fence to huddle together and stay warm.
Thousands of these critters can be seen in huge bunches all along the fence, on top of bushes, and even under the eaves of the house. Here they are sitting on the fence.
So! I've always wanted to capture this phenomenon and in December of 2014, soon after getting an Atomos Shogun 4k recorder for my Sony A7s, I made a short trip across the street with that camera and a Panasonic GH4 (which is native 4k), along with a 105mm/f2.8 macro lens, a tripod and a short slider.
Shooting in 4k and delivering in 1080/HD allowed me to punch into the image to simulate a 200mm macro, and enabled some interesting effects (like spinning the image on its z-axis, simulating a very difficult physical move called a "Dutch Roll" in cinematography). In an hour or so I'd collected quite a bit of footage and took it all into Final Cut Pro X to start editing.
But first I needed some perfect music! I did some searching on the internet and found an incredible song about Ladybugs by Kim Fox (who used to be a NY-based musician and is now an LA-based wedding and portrait photographer). This song was so insanely great... it made me happy just listening to it, and I contacted Kim, asked her permission to use it (she was surprised that anyone had even found it and she generously gave me that) and was on my way. Editing was a breeze, and color graded it in DaVinci Resolve to match the two cameras output as best I could.
I regularly re-watch this video whenever I need a lift because the music and visuals just make me feel good. Mostly it's the song, but also the way the ladybugs gather together for warmth... they are a metaphor for how we all need each other to get by. Once the coldest part of the winter is over these little bugs go their separate ways to feed on aphids for 6-8 months and then they come back to each other and settle in once again.
Enjoy the video! (and note that it, like most of my videos, is hosted on Vimeo because of the superior compression to Youtube -- I'm hoping that Steemit will support native Vimeo embedding very soon, fingers crossed)
Are they called Ladybugs or Ladybirds? Either way, they are not birds OR ladies!
For the derivation of their name, you can click here.
Thank you for viewing these and I hope you enjoyed this story.
-g
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