Category Archives: Macro
Eyespots
Friends, went south for the weekend to Iowa to explore some tall grass prairie. Found this butterfly, the common buckeye, very pretty but perched in lots of junk, so had to blur out the background. Photoshop to the rescue. Don’t you just love the eyespots, my friend is in opthalmology so this butterfly is for her, enjoy til Tomorrow MJ
Wing Detail or Abstract
Friends, a macro to test my lens, this is a Monarch butterfly wing, up close and personal, i was experimentingwith the detail extractor and color contrast settings in color effex pro, the fuzzy is the details of the wing scales, til Tomorrow MJ
Abstracts
Friends, Ed Kneply of Photography Improvement Blog has issued a challenge to do six abstracts, three outdoors and three indoors, one each of macro, wide angle and telephoto viewpoints. Objects should not be recognizable and line, shapes, and textures to be the main emphasis. How did I do on these abstracts of outdoor only? The pink is a macro, the green ring is a wide-angle and the ore dock is a telephoto. til Tomorrow MJ
A Rare Butterfly?
Friends, normally you find monarch butterflies all over the Northwestern corner of Wisconsin, but this year they have been scarce in Crex. So i took a little trip south to Fish Lake Refuge on Thursday and in my wanderings, was able to find eight of these on the abundant blazing star flowers. Maybe the second hatch has been successful or my friend, Agogo is releasing a sustaining population. I like the little slash of orange contributed by the backlight on this particular butterfly. Not sure that i like the color scheme, pink and orange, but i like the bokeh. til Tomorrow MJ
Green Details
Friends, this leaf was backlit this morning and i couldn’t resist trying to photograph. I think all the tiny details are interesting. it is a arrowhead leaf and this time of year it has some white blossoms that are arranged on a stalk. I wanted an image that incorporated both the leaves and the flower, but alas could not do unless i wanted to get very wet. Do you like? til Tomorrow MJ
Dogbane Beetle- A Natural History
Friends, a friend (thanks Kathy) pointed out this very colorful beetle to me. It is a dogbane beetle and eats leaves from Dogbane and Milkweed of which we have plenty in Crex. Probably the most noticeable characteristic of this tiny bug is the iridescent glow of color caused by small scales stacked at different angles on top of pigment. The circled areas show the scales as dark dots in lighter circles. One area will have focused scales while an adjacent area will be out of focus. The light bounces around and give the iridescence. These beetles are harmless to agricultural crops in that they only eat the leaves of milkweed and dogbane.
Another Karner
Friends, could not resist showing you one more Karner Butterfly, and endangered specie here in Crex Meadows. This is a better image in that he is perched on a lead plant flower instead of the usual scat perch and the blue spots on his hind wing are showing their iridescent glow. The light needs to be right for those spots to glow and look like abalone. The bokeh is also better than the previous image. til Tomorrow MJ
Orange on orange
Friends, this is one of the many fritillary butterflies in Crex. I think this is Atlantis but can’t be sure. To me they all look alike and i have difficulty differentiating them, but don’t need a name to appreciate their beauty. This one is perched on butterfly weed, an orange milkweed. til Tomorrow MJ
Skipper
Friends, this tiny skipper is sipping from the vervain that is abundant in Crex right now . His yellow head suggests that he is a Dun Skipper, maybe someone can help with the identification. I am far from a butterfly expert. I like his proboscis looped in the air and i like the bokeh. The background was rendered as amorphous because the distance between the subject and background was greatly out of focus. I am not always so lucky. til Tomorrow MJ
Weekly Photo Challenge:Foreshadow
Friends, these leaves of the Solomon Seal plant are curly and have longitudinal veining. I like the pattern Foreshadowing the blooms. til Tomorrow MJ
MJ Springett 