Shooting Ants

Summer is upon us; any moment now I expect to see a procession of ants marching in single file across my walls. The ant population and I have achieved a sort of detente: we ignore each other’s existence, unless they launch a vicious attack on the cat food supply. Then I bring out the citronella linen spray, which for now seems to convince the ants to forage elsewhere.

The photographer Patrick de Koenigswarter has a different approach to the ant family: he shoots them. Patrick once trained his cameras on society icons and celebrities; now he prefers to take pictures of ants. “I guess one could say I have ants in my genes,” he says. “My elders on my mother’s side have been passionately involved with nature and nature studies. My grandfather, Charles Rothschild, was a leading expert on fleas, amassing what is considered to be the most complete collection of fleas ever assembled. Lolo Charles described some 500 new species and subspecies, including the flea identified as the chief vector of the Black (Bubonic) Plague. That flea was subsequently named after him — scientifically very prestigious but what some might deem a rather dubious honor!”

Patrick’s mother, Pannonica, was named after a rare Hungarian moth. His great-uncle Walter, second Baron Rothschild, was one of the foremost collectors of natural history specimens: about 250 plants and animals have been named after him. His aunt, Dame Miriam Rothschild, was a celebrated biologist and an expert on butterflies, fleas, and wild flowers, and his mother’s brother, Lord (Victor) Rothschild, was a distinguished zoologist, an expert on the fertilization of frogs, trout and sea urchins.

“I grew up amongst people who lived and breathed Nature and entomology in particular,” Patrick continues. “As soon as I learned to read, I plunged into books that dealt with all kinds of animals and insects.

After many years of reading and observation, I decided that I wanted to concentrate on spiders and ants, because they are so plentiful and readily accessible everywhere, particularly in the tropical countries where I have spent most of my life. Furthermore they tend to be neglected by many naturalists and nature photographers who are attracted to more “glamorous” creatures.”

Patrick’s “epiphany” as a photographer occurred several decades ago, when he was taking extreme macro photographs of details of flowers.

“One day in my studio as I was shooting a structurally- interesting detail of an orchid bloom through a very long lens, when an ant casually wandered into the frame and momentarily paused dead center.

“My jaw must have dropped a mile. I was transfixed by the sight of this alien creature, cooperatively posed in the sort of detail I had never expected to see other than through an electron microscope. I clicked the shutter, got the photo and that was it: I was hooked on macro insect photography!”

At present, Patrick is using his son David’s Nikon D80 digital 35mm SLR camera. “All this is very new to me; I am still in the process of learning how to manipulate a very complex digital camera after half a century of analog photography. Fortunately, David has been patient enough to guide his ancient father through some of the intricacies of 21st century photo techniques.” Patrick acquired his first “serious” camera — the original 1960 model Nikon “F” SLR — half a century ago, and has stuck with the Nikon brand for 35mm photography ever since. “I am now able to make use of practically all of the excellent Nikkor lenses that I accumulated over the decades,” he enthuses.

For ant photography, his principal lens is the 200mm 1:4 Macro-Nikkor, at times augmented by a Nikon Teleconverter TC-300 2x which doubles the lenses’ 200mm focal length. “I want to add bellows in order to achieve even more dramatic close-ups as soon as I can figure out and put together an appropriate lighting system — probably a combination of stand-alone electronic flash augmented by a ring light fitted to the end of the lens. Hopefully this will permit me to obtain adequate depth of field by closing down the lens to the max, while avoiding frying, blinding or excessively freaking out my tiny little subjects.”

Needless to say, a very sturdy tripod (in Patrick’s case a Manfrotto) is an absolute necessity for this type of photography.

Naturally I asked Patrick which organism he preferred to photograph: ants or celebrities. “Ants can carry 100 times their own weight, whereas some celebrities are prone to throwing theirs around in the photo studio,” he laughs. “I have yet to be bitten by human celebrities, but I have been subjected to vicious ant attacks, something that those of us engaged in what is referred to as ‘wet belly photography’ must learn to endure!” (The most effective treatment for painful ant bites: Vicks VapoRub.)

“Ants don’t normally make demands on the photographer such as insisting on being photographed from a certain specific angle, or in a certain light, or wanting their eye bags or wrinkles removed in the final print!” Patrick adds. On more than one occasion he was provoked into — politely — reminding the subject that he was a mere photographer not a plastic surgeon.

The particular species of ant that Patrick discovered thriving in the bushes outside his front door in Makati is the Asian Weaver ant of the genus Oecophylla, which by ant standards is large (up to 8mm) and strictly arboreal. “Weaver ants construct elaborate nests in bushes by pulling leaves close together then literally sewing them together with thousands of strands of sticky larval silk exuded by their own larvae which the ants carry around in their mandibles,” he explains.

The silk strands are woven into very durable sheets which bind the nest leaves together into sturdy, waterproof structures. These ants also engage in what Patrick calls “insect husbandry”: keeping, protecting and herding scale insects which exude a sugary, nutritive liquid which the ants relish.

“The Weaver ants, which normally pay no attention to humans, become extremely aggressive in defense of their nests the minute they feel threatened. If one were reckless enough to shake a branch with a nest on it, the ants would literally launch themselves at him in a mass suicide attack!”

These ants also exert environmental control by seeking out, attacking and eating bugs and other harmful pests that feed on their host trees or bushes. For centuries, Weaver nests have been gathered, sold and placed in citrus groves and orchards in China and other Asian countries: the oldest recorded usage of biological pest control in agricultural history. The practice continues today as a safer alternative to chemical spraying in southern China.

No doubt ants are very industrious, clever, and useful creatures, but what do we do in case of an ant infestation? “Ants have been around for 65 to 80 million years,” Patrick points out. “In contrast, modern humans are considered to have emerged less than 200,000 years ago. In other words ants enjoy considerable seniority, and getting rid of them is not only extremely difficult but not necessarily desirable.”

He is strongly opposed to the use of chemical pesticides, which not only tend to be an ineffective long-term weapon versus ants, but which almost certainly contaminate us, our pets, our air and our soil. “The wiser solution, in my opinion, is to make a determined and consistent effort to eliminate or at least minimize anything likely to attract ants to one’s premises.” Use airtight containers in the kitchen, make sure that garbage cans are effectively sealed, and never leave pet food lying around once the pets are finished eating.

“Ants are everywhere, but only occasionally noticed,” says the introduction to E.O. Wilson and Bert Holldobler’s monumental study, Ants. “They run much of the terrestrial world as the premier soil turners, dominatrices of the insect fauna. They employ the most complex forms of chemical communication of any animals and their social organization provides an illuminating contrast to that of human beings, but not one biologist in a hundred can describe the life cycle of any species.” Think about that the next time you reach for the insecticide, you mass murderer.