I was going through some shots I took at Butterfly World a while back when I came across this one. It’s of a Dryadula butterfly, also known as an Orange Heliconian. They range from Brazil to Mexico and rarely can be found as far north as Kansas.

When I took this I remember being excited that he was resting on some purple flowers. I try to find my butterflies  either on flowers whose colors complement their wings or  sitting in front of and attractive background.

In this case the background was rather dark. I added contrast in Nik Software’s Color Efex Pro followed by some warming with the Brilliance and Warmth filter in that program. I added a canvas rose texture I got from Joel Olives Photography, masked out some the texture off the butterfly’s wings, and did some selective sharpening with Nik Software’s sharpening software.

On my recent trip to Butterfly World the other day I encountered this Mosaic butterfly. I’ve gotten pictures of this rainforest butterfly on previous photo sessions, but the results are rarely inspiring. They would either be far back from the walkway or sitting on a banana, sucking the nectar. These locations do not usually lend an attractive background for a good macro image.

So when I came across this one hanging upside down from a leaf close to the walkway, I was pleasantly surprised. I maneuvered myself into the best angle to catch the green background without any blown out areas. Because he was in fairly dark shade I wound up shooting at ISO 1600. The resulting graininess or noise is not a problem to overcome with good noise reduction software (in this case, Noiseware Professional), and brightening the colors and adding some additional sharpness with Topaz Adjust 5 and Photoshop’s Unsharp Mask filter rounded out the appearance of the image. I added some contrast in Lightroom to finish.

I went to Butterfly World today. I didn’t have a lot of time to spend there, but I was able to snag this shot of a butterfly enjoying the nectar of a sunflower. I took several shots, mostly at high shutter speeds to freeze the motion of his wings. He was very energetic, though I did get some shots of him sitting still. When I finished the series I knew I had gotten my shot for the day. The almost radiant background is not a Photoshop trick, it was done in camera with the 100mm macro lens’ ability to blur the background, so it just came out that way.

I captured this shot of a Blue Morpho butterfly with his wings open at Butterfly World the other day. They rarely open their wings, and when they do, it’s often in place that hard to shoot, like back in the bushes, or lying on the sidewalk, which makes for an ugly background. He actually relaxed on that leaf for some time. As I walked away, other photographers were still shooting images of him.

I processed this shot in Lightroom and Photoshop CS5 using Topaz Software to bring out more detail and make the colors pop. I used my Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens at f9.0, 1/125 shutter speed, ISO 2500. I use high ISO a lot to keep the shutter speed high enough for hand held shooting.

I spent most of this Fourth of July relaxing and processing images. I took my wife out this afternoon and got something to eat. After the food digested I decided it would be a good idea to go to the gym and work off some calories. And on the way home  I would stop at a nearby park.

Cypress park was where I took the last Gulf Fritillary image that I posted recently to this blog. It’s a small park, but has plenty of dragonflies and several species of butterflies, including White Peacocks and Zebras along with the colorful Gulf Frittilary.

When I got there I went to the small wooded glen where I’d gotten my previous butterfly photos. Not much was happening there. A couple dragonflies,but they weren’t particularly cooperative. They just wanted to tease their photographer and not sit for their portrait.

So after about twenty minutes of more or less no action, I decided to go to a long strip of land that runs along side the canal bordering the park. Plenty of sticks for dragonflies to land on, and on the way there, there’s bushes with various flowers, including the butterfly’s favorite, candy corn plant. All kinds of butterflies love to suck its nectar.

As I walked by the bushes, I saw him. He was fluttering about, as wild butterflies love to do, but I sensed he was going to make some stops along the way. I followed him around the bushes until he settled down. The pink/red background you see is the cedar chips on the ground surrounding the bushes.

I finally got a shot like I wanted. I never could seem to get him with his wings open. And the background came out nice. I wound up throwing out a lot of shots, but the keepers are worth having. It’s just a matter of going out with the attitude that I’m going to capture something amazing, and persisting until I get something good. If you do that, you probably won’t come home empty handed.