Mosquitoes are one of nature’s least appreciated creatures, but through Jena Johnson’s camera, they become beautiful, striking models for macrophotography.
Johnson, a lab manager in the Department of Entomology in UGA’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, captures what she observes working with mosquitoes and other insects in the lab of entomology professor Michael Strand. She finds scientific and artistic meaning in her photos, which offer a glimpse at both intriguing behavioral phenomena and unexpected natural beauty.
But there’s more significance to her work than just shooting pretty pictures.
“When I first began my career in entomology, I struggled to communicate information through data, graphs and words,” said Johnson. “I’ve always appreciated visual aids to understand research results. Thus, in my career as a laboratory technician, my goal has always been to help researchers understand results through photos and illustrations.”
Johnson’s work has supplemented the lab’s research in a variety of publications, and has even been featured on the cover of the Journal of Medical Entomology.
