A FEW FRAGMENTS OF A FORGOTTEN YEAR

Earlier today, while searching for some old stuff in the old folders here on my PC, I came across a few photographs and Photoshop edits that I felt inspired to publish in a post right now. You'll see some insects and snippets of nature, all highly processed and slightly unnatural, like contemporary junk food wrapped in plastic.

In this opening shot, you can see a pill bug wandering on the lower surface of the pretty large leaf of some herbaceous plant that grows abundantly in the clearings surrounded by a dense forest not far from the village of Valtura, about nine or ten kilometers from where I live. The colors here are different from those in nature, but the creature is quite authentic. It's a real pill bug on a real leaf. The hairy leaf resembles some kind of fluffy fabric when seen through the macro lens. Pill bugs resemble armadillos and trilobites, generally.
Have you ever tried to swallow a pill bug? I mean, I know you don't wanna swallow a bug. But this isn't only a bug; it is a pill as well, and people are swallowing all kinds of pills all the time.

Here you can see the reeds in the strong wind. The photograph was taken at dawn, on a day that felt like the night would never end. On that occasion, my camera was slightly damaged by the salty spray coming from the nearby sea. I don't regret it becouse I like this atmospheric shot; I like it a lot.

(Enlargeable)

The scientific name of the grasshopper shown in this photograph is Tetrix undulata. Grasshoppers of this type are commonly known as groundhoppers. Colors were slightly altered in Photoshop for no good reason whatsoever. I did it only becouse I could.

(Enlargeable)

Here you can see a young, wingless grasshopper in a photograph where nothing was altered in Photoshop.

(Enlargeable)

This is the same insect. The same grasshopper nymph. Can't tell you the name of the species. Grasshoppers of this type are commonly known as locusts. I'm too lazy to search the Internet for more scientifically oriented details about this grasshopper.

Here you can see the chaotic, intricate mix of small trees, shrubs, and climbing plants in the forests here in my area. The image was processed and altered in Photoshop to make the scene slightly neater. It all looked even messier in the original photograph.

(Enlargeable)

This photograph shows two insects in the relative safety of the thorn-covered leaves of a dried-out thistle. These hemipterans belong to the Pyrrhocoridae family. The scientific name of the species is Pyrrhocoris apterus. These insects are commonly known as firebugs.
As you probably immediately noticed, the colors in the photograph had been changed in Photoshop. Firebugs are, in reality, vivid red with black markings that resemble a stylized face or some kind of mask.

(Enlargeable)

This is yet another grasshopper nymph. Don't ask me about the name of the species. You know I can't always tell you that.

Believe it or not, this is my hand. You can shake it if you wish. But be careful: the hand in this inverted version of the original photograph is made of antimatter. I can't guarantee that you'll survive the contact if you are made of matter. If you are a spiritual being, don't worry; you can do fucking everything...except open a door...or take a knife to cut a cake or your ear...you know, useless stuff like that. But you can pass through walls and trunks of trees - that's cool.

Anyway, I reached the end here. This post is cooked and ready to be published. As always here on Hive, the photographs are my work.