A FALL CRITTER--

I found this caterpillar on a fallen branch while both of us were meandering along the driveway today.  The lens on my camera was my Canon 17-40 mm, f/4 L, my usual walking-around lens.  To do the photo I set the lens at minimum focus distance and maximum focal length on the automatic mode then simply held the little branch in front of the lens and moved it about until I found the composition I liked.

I positioned myself so this happened with the critter back lit by the early afternoon sun and a dark woods in the background.  The shutter speed was 1/200th of a second and the aperture was f/8.  That shutter speed was sufficient to stop any blur from either the critter or the camera moving and the aperture was small enough to give sufficient depth of field to keep the critter in focus while obscuring the background detail.

The odd shaped white lines in its fur are evidently from a piece of stray, weedy fuzz.

The little caterpillar was virtually motionless during its portrait episode.  No matter how hard I looked I could not find its head as it appeared to be climbing the small branch.  When we were done I laid the branch in the shady weeds with an expression of appreciation for its cooperation.

That's when I noticed its direction of travel was to the left.

Unless it was backing up, that would put its head on the end opposite where I was looking, of course.