Wednesday, August 29, 2012

A model dragonfly

 No, these are pictures of a real, living dragonfly. The reason for my title is that this one acted like a professional model. It allowed be to get many different shots from different angles. I'm so used to dragonflies being skittish, though, that I couldn't settle down to get a really good shot. Some part of its body is out of focus in each of the pictures I took.


As with all of my pictures, just click on the picture to see it larger. The three pictures I've included here are in time order. I came up behind my subject expecting it to fly away at any moment but it let me get pretty close. The top picture was taken from about three feet away. I like how the veins in the wing came out but the head and eyes are slightly out of focus.

The second picture is the worst in terms of what's in focus but I like the sunlight on the wings. At this point, the dragonfly was turning its head and adjusting its wings as it studied me and was deciding whether to fly away or not. It did fly off at one point but came right back to the same limb. Only down a little lower.

I like the final picture the best in that it is from an unusual angle and the dragonfly appears to be looking right at me and smiling! Of course, it is not smiling and I don't think an insect's compound eyes can "look right at" anything. The bad part of this last picture is that I wasn't able to get the background to be blurry. Oh well, this is a learning experience. Unfortunately, I had to get back to work (I was on a walk at lunch time). I wonder how long my "model" would have stayed?

No comments: