This is the easily recognisable Yellow Garden Spider, known by other names as well, and most properly as Argiope aurantia, a name which means "gilded silver-face," owing to the silver colour of the cephalothorax, along with the golden yellow abdomen.
This particularly fat female made her web directly in front of my patio, where she is out of the way, but clearly visible.
Given the position of her web, I had very few angles available to me. Still, I was able to get close enough to capture all the detail of the spider herself, as well as some of her web.
Nearby was another spider, a spiny orb weaver of the genus Micrathena (probably M. sagittata, as that is the arrowhead spider typically found in the eastern US, but there are other arrowhead spiders in this genus of 119 species - yes, I am a huge arachnophilic nerd, in case you couldn't tell). I have many more of these than the Argiope spiders, and a few other species of this same genus living deep in the woods, such as the M. gracilis whom I almost ran right into when I made a video tour of the woods behind my house.
This last one shows the best detail of the Argiope's web.
I took these photos yesterday. What follows are photos of a smaller Argiope that I stumbled across while brush-hogging a field. I deliberately avoided the spider, but she was not fond of the brush hog, and every time I passed by, she ran from the centre of her web up into the flowers.
You can't tell from this angle, but she's eating a grasshopper. Apparently, after mowing the field, all the insects decided to seek refuge in the few patches of tall weeds round the boulders, and also the patch that I left with the spider.
You can't tell that she's eating from this angle, either.
Do you see it now? You can probably see that she is sucking (spiders don't munch) on something.
Unlike the larger specimen near my house, I was able to get an all-around view of this one.
Camera: Nikon D3100
Lens: AF-S Nikkor 18-55mm