Q. How did you get started as a naturalist?
A. As a teenager, I spent more time in a Newton park, Cold Spring Park, than I did in high school. It was because of the creatures. I got the idea of trying to identify every one. Writing up that project was my college application. But I’ve been doing this kind of stuff since I was 3.
Q. Was that your idea or your parents’?
A. Sort of a mix. The story is I would bring things home, whether approved or not. So caterpillars would come into the house one way or the other. My mother has a natural-history heritage on her side of the family, and my father is a scientist. So my raising caterpillars would get turned into biology projects. They definitely encouraged it - until the point where it got out of control [laughs].
Q. Is Eastern Massachusetts a particularly good place for caterpillars?
A. It certainly has a wealth of species and wealth of habitats. But the point is it’s no better or worse than anywhere else. A lot of books were coming out at the time celebrating the diversity of tropical insects. Although I certainly appreciate that diversity, I felt people were skipping over what we have here and assuming that people have to go to Costa Rica or Brazil to experience such diversity.
Q. People are certainly very interested in local birds or local fish. Why not local caterpillars?
A. There are things like the Abbott’s Sphinx caterpillar over there, with the great pattern and false eye, you can’t find a match to that anywhere else on Earth.
Q. Are there any photographers who’ve influenced you?
A. Absolutely, but it’s more painters, actually, than photographers. I’m trying to do in photography what people in the past have done through painting and etching. There’s nature photography and nature artwork where everything is set in its natural habitat. I consider this more natural history photography, where I’m really concerned with the organism itself. So I don’t mind isolating the caterpillars from the background.
Q. Is there one fact about caterpillars that would surprise people?
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