I have overcome my arachnophobia by taking macro shots.

 Versión en español

Having a spider around had always given me the creeps. I don't know if it was a true arachnophobia,
but seeing a spider on the wall or running across the floor was especially uncomfortable for me. But for the last year I've been taking macro photos with my smartphone and I've been getting closer and closer to them, even just a few centimeters away. They still command a certain respect in me, but it's no longer an uncontrollable disgust. Not only that: I have surprised myself with the impulse to pick up an Araneus angulatus with my fingers to put it in a position where the light would hit it better. I didn't get to do it, but that unconscious impulse I wouldn't have had years ago for sure.

Here are some of my spider photos taken with my iPhone 13 mini. In some cases I used a homemade macro lens and in others an Apexel 100mm.

An Amblyocarenum walckenaeri adopts an aggressive attitude in my garden (Alicante province) when I bring the cell phone a few centimeters close to it.

A Macrothele calpeiana defends itself very annoyed because I have wet it and flooded its cubicle when watering the plants in the garden.

A spitting spider, Scytodes thoracicae, in a flower pot inside my house, although I have seen them in corners and on door frames and pictures.

Cyrtophora citricola. Hard to see not balled up and out of its chaotic web full of trash and leaf litter.

Araneus angulatus. They usually stand outside their web but hold one of their threads with a leg to detect vibrations when a prey is trapped.

A beautiful female wasp spider or Argiope bruennichi in a park in Valencia.

My other macro insect photos on Instagram