Movements of flying insects make them tough to track, but technological advances and some creative thinking have allowed Spanish photographer Xavi Bou to do just that. After spending 10 years concentrating on birds in flight for his Ornithographies project, he shifted his focus to bugs.
For Entomographies, he uses high-speed video footage taken by Adrian Smith, an entomologist at North Carolina State University, to decode and document insect trajectories. Then Bou selects multiple frames and merges them into single images that convey the rapid motions through space and time of one or more animals.
With Smith’s help, Bou has mapped the aerial acrobatics of wasps, the leaps of leafhoppers, and the flutters of butterflies in stunning detail. In doing so, he hopes to raise awareness about the decline of key insect populations worldwide. “It’s happening in front of our eyes, and we are not paying attention,” Bou says.
