I found this documentary on DVD at my public library. Picture and sound are excellent and the disc has several interesting "extras" including a slide show of perhaps 140 to 150 different exotic insects, many never documented before. On a large screen HDTV they look marvelous.
Robert Oelman was born and raised in the Midwest and became a therapist. He worked in that capacity for 20+ years until he decided he wanted out of that rat race, picked up and moved to Colombia. Apparently without a definite plan.
Oelman took an interest in the small world, particularly insects, many of them so small you'd never see them without a rigorous search. He bought a somewhat dilapidated homestead and hired a man and his family to live there and keep the place in order. Eventually the husband, Christian Lopez, became his photography assistant.
Oelman had to expand his knowledge and equipment for doing what is generally called macro photography, special lenses and flash for photographing things as small as a few millimeters. After he exhausted the subjects near his homestead he began to take trips to other South America locations.
The bottom line of all this is he has discovered and photographed perhaps hundreds, or maybe thousands, of previously undiscovered insects. He has added a wealth of knowledge to the subject. The documentary also includes many short comments from scholars who have benefitted from Oelman's exploits.
This is a very good documentary, it of course has some content regarding human industrial recklessness which destroys habitats and thus many species becoming extinct.
