As a relative newbie to the insect photography aspect of this fascinating website, I would love to learn from others things I might do to make my bugs easier to identify - such things as which angle to shoot from, what parts of insect bodies are best per genus/species to differentiate one from another, etc.

I recently captured a roving wolf spider and was eager to submit it for id and I knew the experts would immediately spring to my aid after I posted it. Later, I realized that maybe a view from the bottom of the spider would have helped in its ID. Since I still had the guy in captivity, I set about the goal of shooting it from underneath. (no easy task for such a fast moving and quick jumping spider not particularly interested in posing for a bottoms up view of its spinnerets, abdomen, etc.) After a lot of head scratching, I took an old 8 x 10 photo from a picture frame, cleaned both sides of the glass, placed the frame overhanging the end of my table with books piled on the non-overhanging end to keep it from falling, placed the spider on the glass, placed a plastic cup over the spider, lay down on the floor, and shot multiple pics up through the glass to get the ventral view. Cleaned up the background in photoshop. OK for a first attempt, but could be better. Click on photos for enlarged view.