These incredible photos show you life from a bug’s perspective

Revealing the weird and wonderful world that lies just below your feet.

Photography · Exposure · By Nick Martin · Photographs by Takuya Ishiguro · Published October 6, 2025 · 1 min read · November 2025 Issue

Topics: Wildlife Photography, Insects, Grasshoppers, Moths, Bees, Ants, Wasps, Praying Mantis, Short, Exposure, Photography, Animals, Magazine

Exposure is a National Geographic series that features photography from around the world that our editors love. See more. The realm of insects is right in front of our eyes, filled with kaleidoscopic characters flaunting vibrant colors and dramatic action. But it’s so minuscule, it’s easy to miss. That’s why several years ago, photographer Takuya Ishiguro began altering his camera, adding a magnifying lens between the sensor and main lens. Such modifications are tricky to pull off, because mispositioning any of the components will ruin the image quality. But once he perfected the setup, he was able to capture the tiny but glorious lives of the insects around the lakes and fields of his home in Osaki, Japan. The new perspective left him with “a deep respect for nature’s inventiveness.” Ishiguro found that the invertebrates displayed a remarkable sense of creativity as they harvested food, mated, and burrowed to build their homes. He came to see insects not as specimens but as “beings that live together with us.” (See the extraordinary lives of ordinary bugs.)

A version of this story appears in the November 2025 issue of National Geographic magazine.