NOT Spiderman's truck, Mt. Juliet, Tennessee
Taken in the parking lot of the Speedway Cafe in Mount Juliet.
Many photos I've taken over the years were made possible by coming across subjects purely by accident. This pic is an example. We were early into our third day of driving to north Texas and had left Lenoir City, just west of Knoxville, without grabbing breakfast first. We stopped in Mount Juliet, wanting to get something to eat before moving through Nashville, and on to our next stop, in Hope, Arkansas. As we were leaving I saw this truck with its great graphic and walked over for a closer look. We spent several minutes grabbing phone pics, being careful to get the best angle for eliminating reflections, when the driver appeared. He asked why we were interested enough in his truck to want photos. At this point I showed him some spider images I had on my phone... a number of them being "in your face" shots of Black Widows. He gave us both his business card and mentioned that we should contact his company, Central Tennessee Termite & Pest Control.
The graphic certainly is an attention getter, but is inaccurate. Black Widows don't construct orb webs... ever. They build shapeless, messy webs in a very haphazard manner. Also, to be anywhere near believable, the spider should be on the other side of the web. I could have reworked the image in Photoshop... carefully placing web strands over the spider, but would have still had the Black Widow occupying a web that clearly wasn't her own. However, the average customer with a serious bug problem isn't going to care one bit about the accuracy of any picture on an exterminator's truck. It serves a purpose as-is. It's creepy, has a creepy (if generic) web, and gets the idea across that these are "bug people" that can help you.
iPhone SE-2
IMG-1257
NOT Spiderman's truck, Mt. Juliet, Tennessee
Taken in the parking lot of the Speedway Cafe in Mount Juliet.
Many photos I've taken over the years were made possible by coming across subjects purely by accident. This pic is an example. We were early into our third day of driving to north Texas and had left Lenoir City, just west of Knoxville, without grabbing breakfast first. We stopped in Mount Juliet, wanting to get something to eat before moving through Nashville, and on to our next stop, in Hope, Arkansas. As we were leaving I saw this truck with its great graphic and walked over for a closer look. We spent several minutes grabbing phone pics, being careful to get the best angle for eliminating reflections, when the driver appeared. He asked why we were interested enough in his truck to want photos. At this point I showed him some spider images I had on my phone... a number of them being "in your face" shots of Black Widows. He gave us both his business card and mentioned that we should contact his company, Central Tennessee Termite & Pest Control.
The graphic certainly is an attention getter, but is inaccurate. Black Widows don't construct orb webs... ever. They build shapeless, messy webs in a very haphazard manner. Also, to be anywhere near believable, the spider should be on the other side of the web. I could have reworked the image in Photoshop... carefully placing web strands over the spider, but would have still had the Black Widow occupying a web that clearly wasn't her own. However, the average customer with a serious bug problem isn't going to care one bit about the accuracy of any picture on an exterminator's truck. It serves a purpose as-is. It's creepy, has a creepy (if generic) web, and gets the idea across that these are "bug people" that can help you.
iPhone SE-2
IMG-1257