Today we’d like to introduce you to Renato Guzman
Hi Renato, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My love for animals has always been painfully evident to those that grew up around me. In school I was often referred to as “lizard boy”, which may well have been an attempt at teasing, but i always embraced the name as it really captured who i was at heart. Id spend entire recesses catching lizards and teaching others how to do the same, and a surprising amount of kids were intrigued by my ability to catch these elusive animals. I knew much about the insects and reptiles around the school, and loved sharing to anyone who would listen. This carried on throughout middle and high school, but photographing animals was something I didn’t start doing until the pandemic in 2020.
I started photographing wildlife, particularly insects, during the Covid-19 lockdowns, a time where there wasn’t much else to do except enjoy nature outside by yourself. During the first couple of months I just used my phone to take photos but when I realized how much I enjoyed photographing nature I asked my mom for a macro lens, and that’s when my journey really began. I spent the next year or so obsessively photographing animals throughout North Miami. Anything from reptiles and amphibians to insects and spiders were on my radar and thus I photographed hundreds of animals during that first year. I did this until it was time to say goodbye to the city I’d spent 13 years of my life in. My parents moved to Boca Raton in early 2022, which is where they still live.
Later that same year, I moved to Orlando to start college at the University of Central Florida. What inspired me to pursue further education? Well my photography subjects of course! What started as a small hobby photographing bugs soon consumed me entirely and pushed me to pursue a career in zoology. I’m currently on track to graduate UCF in Fall of 2025 and my plan is to join a PhD Herpetology lab to continue my education, ideally somewhere in Florida.
Since arriving at college, my hobby of photographing animals has increased, and so has my following on Instagram, where I now have over 16,000 people enjoying my weekly uploads. My ambition and niche interests in recording biodiversity has led me to many opportunities here in school. As a sophomore I became the president of UCF’s Entomological Society, also known as “Bug Club”. After a year, i stepped down in order to focus on building my career, which is something I’m still working on today.
Under my mentor, Dr. Matt Atkinson, I am writing my first research paper on aquatic salamander disease dynamics in Central Florida. I also currently work for the UCF department of Biology curating the herpetology museum collection.
All of this awesome work I’m doing and the career I’ll eventually develop because of it, all came about because one day in 2020 i decided to walk outside and photograph a bug. Its so crazy to think about the butterfly effect that this had on my life, and ill forever be thankful to how everything has turned out.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I don’t think I’ve faced any great challenges doing wildlife photography. Sure, there’s the occasional threat from land owners who think I’ve trespassed on their property (for legal reasons I haven’t). There’s also the judgment you get when you’re knee-deep in grass and somebody walks by wondering what the hell you’re doing. Also the many dangers you can encounter while in the forest, which for me includes a very rabid raccoon and a black bear encounter, which thankfully ended with me intact. All in all though, the obstacles I’ve faced doing what I love are nothing compared to the joy I get seeing a rare insect, or finally photographing a frog species that’s eluded me for years. Overcoming fears and challenges are a part of life, and in my opinion, it wouldn’t be as fun without them.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am a wildlife macro-photographer specializing in arthropods and herps, a term which includes reptiles and amphibians. I’m known for my sharp, close-up photography and captivating information articles that always explain a little bit about the featured organism. I do a good amount of research before each upload and am quite familiar with Florida species, so animal identification is one of the things I’m best at. Something that sets me apart from other photographers is my consistency and effort, which again, includes doing much research on animals I’ve photographed. Being an aspiring zoologist, my knowledge about nature is evidently the main thing that sets me apart from other photographers, who often upload their photos of animals without information on their biology. I feel like people not only like looking at cool animals, but learning about them as well, and that’s why I think I’ve been so successful on social media.
Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs or other resources you think our readers should check out?
Identification apps like Picture Insect were a lifeline for me when i was first starting out because I didn’t know much about the insect diversity of Florida. Further, apps like iNaturalist are designed to include location and species data on all your observations, which is important information when you’re doing wildlife photography. Finally, the website that has helped me the most has been Bugguide.net, which i use whenever I cant for the life of me identify an organism correctly. The website is filled to the brim with entomology experts who have identified basically everything I have thrown their way.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/macrozoologist/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Macrozoologist/
