"for they are like dream flowers - childhood dreams - which have
broken loose from their stalks and escaped into the sunshine. Air and
angels."
-Miriam Rothschild
I have tried for at least three summers now, maybe four, to get something approaching this series of butterflies in flight, but capturing mating butterflies was beyond my imaginings. About a week ago a pair of swallowtails, one male yellow and one intermediate black female, spent the afternoon dancing together about my yard. taking intervals away from each other to eat, and then rejoining each other in the air. i just watched for a while - it was magical - and it felt as though the sound of my shutter might break the spell. but eventually i couldn't help myself and i started shooting, fully expecting, as so many times before, that what i'd see in my viewfinder would be a shadow of the experience. this time was different, i feel like i was granted a gift by the butterflies. and when i saw this image on my monitor my heart leaped. it held the magic.
i don't usually crop my butterflies, save a square to eliminate distracting foliage, because i think seeing the butterfly in the context of how i saw it is important, but at my husband's insistence I have a really tight crop of this shot in comments. also a few others of this dramatic pair as they moved about my yard.
thank you all so much for cheering me on, it means a great deal, and it keeps me going around day 19 when i'm ready to pack it in. i will still be shooting butterflies, because truth be told, i can't stop. the buckeyes, which i love, don't really start showing up here till later in the summer, and if the heat ever breaks and we get out to our c.s.a. i'll see the adorable long winged checkerspots that we don't get around here. so there will still be butterflies, just not every day. and if you would like some of my butterflies for your own, i am making notecards and postcards of some of them, and will be opening an etsy shop in the weeks to come. I'll share the information here on flickr when they are ready.
Shawna Lemay, AnyDirectFlight, NatJM, slycat54, and 16 other people added this photo to their favorites.
View 18 more comments
damiec 10 months ago | reply
thank you friends, for understanding how much these shots meant to me. we had a long talk with the kids last weekend about what makes a photo good for a viewer vs what makes it meaningful for the shooter. i feel, generally, that the more i say about a picture, the less of a chance it gets to do it's own talking, but this experience was one I just had to share in words too.
and now that I'm done, what do I have on my memory card, but a couple hundred shots of butterflies. August 1st brought the most variety I've ever seen in one day in my own yard, and new-to-me teeny tiny ones too. so, until we get a proper cold snap, which seems ages away from our code yellow heat, check this space for more butterflies.
journeyswithasimplegirl 10 months ago | reply
i am at a loss for words.
truly. amazingly. utterly. beautiful...
i've never seen a photo of butterflies like this.
xoxoxoxoxo
Anna Dykema 10 months ago | reply
Wow! Amazing shot! I do like the crop, too. I'm so excited about your Etsy shop!!!! Yay!!!!! The Female Photographers of Etsy is a great group. I've learned so much from them. Here's their Flickr pool: www.flickr.com/groups/femalephotographersofetsy/
A bunch of beans 8 months ago | reply
WOW! I LOVE that cropped shot. Simply stunning. What fantastic timing!