My Best Butterfly Photos: Part I

I thought I would share some of my best "Butterfly Photos."  Here's Part I:

Achilles Morpho

African Moon Moth

Anise Swallowtail

Apricot Sulphur

Atlas Moth

Baird's Old World Swallowtail

Bamboo Page

Banded Bamboo

Banded Orange

Banded Peacock

Apricot Sulphur

Butterflies offer the potential for a "5" rated photo. It can be challenging because a butterfly may never land and so you wait patiently for landing and it never happens. Often the colorful patterns are on the dorsal  (uppe-rside) and when it does land it almost immediately closes it's wings. It mostly depends on the species. Some will land and open and close their wings quickly several times and then close them the rest of the time they are feeding. You might take 7 or 8 photos quickly and find that none of them were at the split second when the wings were wide open. A very fast focusing camera with quick bursts is helpful in those cases. As you will see in later posts, some butterflies land with open wings as if saying, "please, take my picture." In today's photo, this Apricot Sulphur like most sulphurs, keep their wings closed while feeding. But in this case, it still offers a wonderful color contrast with the bright red flower on which it is feeding:

Apricot Sulphur: Tucson Botanical Garden

Fine Art Wildlife Photography -- Butterflies

Butterflies make wonderful photographs. There is a difference though, between a wonderful butterfly photo that shows all its colors making it easy to identify and one that I would consider "fine art."  .I have decent photographs of 155 different butterfly species. Many like the first one are very nice and show great detail:

Blue Morpho

But beyond the detail and color of the butterfly, flowers can add additional color but in a contrasting way. Backgrounds can be soft focus providing additional contrast and making the butterfly stand out more. And, of course, the composition can provide a uniqueness that says, this isn't just a photo for identification purposes. Here are a few of my favorites:

Leopard Lacewing

Apricot Sulphur

Banded Orange

Cloudless and Dogface Sulphurs