The Reader
A praying mantis beside an open Bible, caught in hard light. Its raised forelegs and enlarged shadow turn an ordinary encounter into something almost theatrical.
The direct light picks out bronze and gold across the insect while throwing an exaggerated silhouette behind it. The coincidence needs little embellishment: an insect whose common name comes from the apparent posture of prayer appeared beside a book concerned, among rather more important things, with precisely that subject.
No scene was required beyond what was already there.
Catalogue note
Place: Richards Bay, Zululand, South Africa
Date: July 2026
Time: approximately 11:00
Camera: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
The photograph supports identification as a mantis of the order Mantodea. No attempt is made here to assign genus or species from this single view.
From the field
“But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee:”
“Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the LORD hath wrought this?”
— Job 12:7, 9 · KJV