Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Photography: Hunting the Black Butterfly

Today I took the camera out and got some good pictures of wildlife and plants.

This flower is almost ready to bloom.  It's actually growing in the herb patch in the butterfly meadow, although I don't think it's an herb; I scattered some random wildflower seeds there too.


These are the seedpods, still green, from the foxglove penstemon in the wildflower garden.


I experimented more with flower silhouettes.  I'm not fully satisfied with the results, but this shot had some interesting translucence in the petals.


Sadly the goldenrain tree bloomed while the air conditioning was out, and I didn't get a picture of it.  But it has nifty lantern-like seed pods.


I think this white spider is a crab spider.  Usually these critters find a flower whose color (in the mammalian viewing range) matches their own (although the ultraviolet range may be quite different).  This is in the barrel garden.


Several birds were dust-bathing in the driveway.


In the butterfly meadow, an ellusive black butterfly appeared!  The canny huntress froze in place, f.a.d.i.n.g into the environment...


The wily prey never stopped moving, even when feeding on a flower.  It came closer and closer.




This is the best view of the top side of the wings.


This is the best view of the underwings.


I had suspected that I was seeing black swallowtails, since their caterpillars are everywhere; but this doesn't look much like one.  In particular the orange eyespots on the upper wing surfaces are missing.  It seems more like a pipevine swallowtail -- but I don't know of any pipevines around here.  Go figure.


I have some more photos, including:
* More of the butterfly in different poses, some sharp, some partly blurred where the wings flutter
* More attempts at flower silhouettes: echinacea and Queen Anne's lace
* Closeups of echinacea 
* Closeups of yellow coneflowers

Several artists have posted samples of their sketch pages, with more sketches being available if people want to sponsor some.  I'm trying something similar with photography.  So if you want to see more, $1 will get you two extra photos.  (You can use the PayPal button on my profile page, or contact me for other options.)  Your choice of 1/4 size like these, or full-size; I'll try to remember to put them behind a cut.  Doug's camera seems to be shooting at 1600x1200, and I usually reduce the size to 400x300.
Tags: gardening, illinois, nature, personal, photography, wildlife
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  • 13 comments
jenny_evergreen

jenny_evergreen

July 4 2010, 03:46:20 UTC 11 years ago

What a coincidence! I knocked the dead body of one of those crab spiders off my car door the other day (no idea how it smacked into the side of my car!), and that was the first I'd ever seen such a thing, and now here's another one!
ysabetwordsmith

Well...

ysabetwordsmith

July 4 2010, 04:06:08 UTC 11 years ago

They are ordinarily among the most inconspicuous of spiders -- they're small, and they're lurk hunters.
moonvoice

moonvoice

July 4 2010, 05:23:15 UTC 11 years ago

That butterfly is beautiful, we don't have anything quite like that here in Western Australia. The underside of the wings are just captivating.
ysabetwordsmith

Yes...

ysabetwordsmith

July 4 2010, 18:33:29 UTC 11 years ago

I enjoyed watching the fluttering wings flash that metallic blue in the sunlight.
endlessrarities

endlessrarities

July 4 2010, 17:21:10 UTC 11 years ago

What a smashing butterfly! Beats my cabbage whites hands down...
ysabetwordsmith

Thank you!

ysabetwordsmith

July 4 2010, 18:18:50 UTC 11 years ago

We have lots of cabbage whites here too. I've gotten some nice pictures of them; they are good for practice. We have yellows as well, but I haven't caught one on camera yet.
the_vulture

the_vulture

July 5 2010, 04:31:32 UTC 11 years ago Edited:  July 5 2010, 04:35:36 UTC

Nice contrast in that last photo. Might be interesting to see it cropped to place the flutterby more into the upper right quadrant for more visual contrast.

Here's a quick explanation of the Rule of Thirds.
ysabetwordsmith

Thoughts

ysabetwordsmith

July 5 2010, 04:51:17 UTC 11 years ago

I'm familiar with compositional rules. I'm most likely to use them with flowers and such. With a butterfly that never stops moving, I concentrate on keeping the bugger in the frame -- which usually means centered, although the first photo actually has it off to the right.

I'll see what happens with cropping.
the_vulture

Re: Thoughts

the_vulture

July 5 2010, 05:32:07 UTC 11 years ago

True, a moving target is hard to keep framed properly and yours is a strategy that works if you've enough resolution to sacrifice to cropping later (as it appears you did, judging from the results in your next post). :)
ysabetwordsmith

Re: Thoughts

ysabetwordsmith

July 5 2010, 05:35:30 UTC 11 years ago

Doug's camera shoots at 1600x1200 normally, which is huge. I think there is an even higher setting too, that I haven't used yet but he has. I cut the pictures down to a quarter the size when posting LJ.
the_vulture

Re: Thoughts

the_vulture

July 5 2010, 08:09:57 UTC 10 years ago

I generally shoot at 2816 x 2112, but I've a macro set in my photo-editor to batch process image resizing, so I can also have an email manageable copy of 'em, too.
red_trillium

red_trillium

July 6 2010, 09:16:49 UTC 10 years ago

Love the shots! Keep playing with the flower silhouettes, I'm especially liking how you approach those.
ysabetwordsmith

Thank you!

ysabetwordsmith

July 6 2010, 16:06:27 UTC 10 years ago

I'm having fun with the silhouettes, but they're hard to do because I don't have a lot of flowers in places with a horizon view. There are many trees in our yard, some hedges, and surrounding cornfields. But I will keep exploring!

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