Vanessa Cardui on Milk Thistle

Vanessa Cardui on Milk Thistle

The incredible onslaught of the Vanessa Cardui continues - the air is still filled with them, and this is beautiful! I was waiting bu the Milk Thistles today, as I noticed it was a popular destination for them, and managed to grab some photos of the beautiful butterflies on the equally beautiful flowers. The color combination is just incredible. We can clearly see the butterfly drinking from the flower.

What do I like about this photo? The beautiful color contrast between the butterfly the flower, and the background, makes both the butterfly and the flower stand out very nicely, and presents the viewer with two interesting focal points. I used an open aperture (f/6.3 - the most open my lens supports at the focal length of 400mm that I used) to create a shallow depth of field, so the butterfly and the flower are in focus, but the rest is blurred out, again making the butterfly and the flower stand out. The background is blurry, with the light there creating a nice bokeh effect, for added interest. The light comes from behind the butterfly, with the background being dark, which lights up the butterly, showing its beautiful colors and semi-transparent wings. The amount of details is huge - you can see individual "hairs" on the head of the butterfly!

What would I want to improve? Closing the aperture a little more might have gotten the tips of the wings into focus as well, at the cost of some blurriness of the background. This might have been preferable for this photo.