These are the photographs that I turned in for my Class 3 photography homework assignment. Both my subjects happened to be eating, so I categorized them as “Lunchtime.”

This is Madison having lunch. I saw her and her mother at an adjacent table just as I was leaving a sandwich shop. I asked for permission to photograph the baby and the mother was gracious and agreed.

Yummy

This is an Argiope aurantia spider, also having lunch. I found the spider while taking photos of a Texas Wood Lizard in my back yard and decided the spider would make a good subject for my homework.

Yummy, in a Mother Nature food-chain way

I must have made at least 11 trips out to the spider web, trying to get a good photo. I was (am) having trouble with my photos being over-exposed. I’d trek out to the web, take seven or eight photos, come back into the house and review them on the computer monitor. Result: Over-exposed. Back out to the spider web. I finally got this one photo that I thought was decent enough to share.

But I’m telling you, if that spider had flinched while I was looking through my camera viewfinder, I would have high-tailed it out of there. It was an overgrown area and I wasn’t thrilled about being there anyway. I was a few inches from an ant mound and I heard rustlings in the tall grasses behind me. If a cricket had landed on me, I would have panicked. If a fire ant had bit me while I was standing there, I’d have had a conniption fit.

Once I thought I saw the spider eyeing me and I started to fret. I didn’t want it to get any ideas about wrapping me up in its web, thinking if it could just catch me, it would be set for life.

I managed to emerge from my photographic safari in the pasture with only a few dozen chigger bites. How lucky can I get.