Rain Ruined My Shoot — Then I Got My Best Photo of the Year

I came to shoot bugs at Wat Pha Lat on a Friday morning. The rain had other plans — but I ended up with my favorite shot of the year. This is what a real wildlife photo morning actually looks like: no plan, no perfect light, just me, my camera, and a jungle that's louder than I am. Come along while I hunt for tiny subjects — spiders on their webs, grasshoppers in the leaves, and one very patient lizard that made the whole wet morning worth it. Along the way you'll see how I frame small subjects, how I get close without scaring them off, and the one setting I got completely wrong — plus what I'm doing differently next time. 📍 Location: Wat Pha Lat (วัดผาลาด), Chiang Mai A 10-minute drive from Maya Mall, up Doi Suthep. (A quick note on spelling — you'll see this temple written Wat Pha Lat, Wat Pha Lad, and Wat Palat. They're all the same place. Thai is phonetic, so the romanization changes. Just how it is.) Subscribe for weekly photography breakdowns, and tell me in the comments which creature I should photograph next. 0:00 Hunting for Tiny Creatures at Wat Pha Lat 1:49 Mastering Macro Focus and Lighting Techniques 5:30 Encountering a Patient Subject in the Wild 9:10 Reviewing the Raw Results in Lightroom 13:55 The Verdict on Tripods and Shutter Speeds