My Best Butterfly Photos: Part IV

Continuing with My Favorite Butterfly Photos:

Citrus Butterfly

Cloudless Sulphur

Clysonymus Longwing

Common Eggfly

Common Leopard

Common Mormon Female

Common Rose

Common Windmill

Congo White

Cream Stripped Swordtail

Butterflies: the Sulphurs

What makes a "5" Star Wildlife Photo? 

Combination of factors really: 1) the rarity of the subject; 2) what the subject is doing; 3) colors; 4) composition; 5) background and foreground; 6) focus; and 7) detail. Yet, inside each of those categories there can be differences that please the eye. In some cases you might want the entire photo in focus, in others, just the subject with the background out of focus (like today's photo). And, while the butterflies in this particular photo aren't "rare" the offsetting colors (yellow and magenta) with the dark background are a big plus.

Cloudless and Dogface Sulphurs on a New Mexico Thistle

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