Easter Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly

FANTASY...

99% of the time, I work in Photoshop the way I used to work in the darkroom--I manipulate contrast and dynamic range with layer masks instead of paper grades. I do my dodging and burning on adjustment layers with a trackball (I must admit that I do miss waving my hands above the print as though I were performing ancient magics...). Every so often, however, I stray from the pure and unpolluted path and lose myself in the creative potential of the program.

This Morpho butterfly was photographed in bright noonday sunlight in Costa Rica. There must have been a 20 stop contrast range and I worked for hours, trying unsuccessfuly to create a reasonable image. Not even PhotoMatix (an HDR program) could salvage this one. So I said, "Let's ignore reality and just play".

And there you have it...

Butterfly House Photography:Tips and Techniques

Well, that last one worked so well, I thought I'd try it again.
Click on the title above to go to a pdf:

Enjoy!!

and thanks to Jeanine Leech (http://www.doubleplaydesigns.com/) for layout assistance!

Just Playing...

Monarch Butterfly Caterpillar (Daneus plexippus)

This monarch butterfly caterpillar is pretty well isolated against its background. It was photographed at f8 and I tried to parallel the sensor plane of the camera with the plane of the caterpillar's body. The choice of d-o-f is always a compromise in macrophotography--too much and backgrounds and foregrounds become distracting. Too little, and parts of the subject that you would like to be sharp are not.

Neither the monarch butterfly nor its caterpillar are subtle in their coloration. In fact, they advertise their identity. They are toxic and/or bad-tasting and are avoided by most birds. Like many caterpillars, the monarch has a set of "horns" both fore and aft, to confuse predators so they will not know which end is which. This gives the caterpillar better odds of surviving an attack.

Japanese Kite Butterfly

Tips for Butterfly Photography:

• Use shallow depth-of-field to blur busy and distracting backgrounds

• Use a longer macro lens to "compress" backgrounds

• Frame the subject with appropriate secondary subjects

• Keep the plane of the butterfly's wings parallel to the camera plane to maximize depth-of-field even while using a wide aperture to blur the background

What I like:
The balance of the image. I like how the bud recapitulates the color and position of the butterfly.

Cabbage Butterfly

What I like:
The balance of the image. I like how the bud recapitulates the color and position of the butterfly.

What I don't like:
The image appears almost two-dimensional -- quite flat. I used fill flash and perhaps this has obliterated the texture that gives objects their dimensionality. Background is BORING! Looks almost like poster board. Would selective dodging and burning help?