How to Photograph Glow Worms

Photographing Glow Worms is a unique kiwi experience. These guys only live in New Zealand and are one of our national treasures.

We run classes on glow worm photography in the Waipu Caves every summer, about 2 hours north of Auckland.

They’re tricky things to photograph, but well worth it. They’re some of my most popular photos, and my first decent shot of them hit the front page of Reddit. The only image of mine that’s ever produced that amount of traffic was a shot published in National Geographic way back in 2011.

Glow Worms in Waipu Cave. Shot back in 2018 with a Lumix GX8

Here’s a tutorial I made for my students taking you through the whole process of photographing and editing glow worm caves: