Macro Photography By Thomas Shahan

Thomas Shahan, shoots close-up photographs of insects and spiders. His work has been published around the world. It's not entirely accurate to say that Thomas Shahan won't hurt a fly, but it's not far off. Shahan, currently living in Norman and studying art at the University of Oklahoma, shoots extreme close-up photographs of insects and spiders. Sometimes he uses himself as bait.
“Deer flies, which are a close relative of horseflies, won't give up,” he said recently. “If they can tell you're hot and sweaty, they'll chase you and will sink their proboscis into you. I've had blood dripping down my legs from them, but I don't want to hurt them. It's a good chance for me to shoot them. If they're feeding on me, they're not going anywhere.”
Tulsa native Thomas Shahan’s popular online photography zooms in on some of Oklahoma’s most microscopic creatures for rare and dynamic close-ups. In photos by art student Thomas Shahan, you are looking into the eyes of, for example, a Thiodina puerpera. Black bristles sprouted like eyelashes above massive metallic green eyes. A smaller pair of eyes bracketed the big ones like punctuation marks. The head was the color of a smoggy sunset, while the biting gear looked like corroded copper.