Mating Damsels
It has been a while since I last took macro-shots of insects at the Botanical Gardens. While the rest of the northern hemisphere is having cold weather for now, we are experiencing the rainy / monsoon season which makes photography almost impossible. In fact, the skies were pouring non-stop for the most part of yesterday!
I took this picture of mating damselflies at the Botanical Gardens in 2004. I had quite soft lighting for the initial few shots I snapped. As luck would have it, the sun decided to make a strong appearance, bathing the two in warm and bright lighting. Lots of post-processing done on the original RAW file in boosting the colours and saturation… Wanted to give a Velvia-feel to the final result 🙂
It is a bit too soft for a macro. The focus seems to be on the leaf and not on the damselflies. A closer crop of the flies alone would have been great. 🙂 The bacground behind the flies could make it a keeper.
Great moment you’ve captured Eng Loy!
Thanks for the comments, Ashwin and Paul 🙂 Ashwin: That was the closest I could get then with my Sigma 70-300mm APO lens. I suppose I could crop it down in Photoshop but I usually like my pictures close to full crop from the original. Hmm.. as to the focus, I think the full-size version is pin-sharp. I could have lost some details in the resize and compression for the web.
Very nice! Such great colors and to capture this moment so perfectly must have been a great feeling. I think it is quite sharp and never would have thought the image is too soft.
It’s one of those moments of nature. Great timing! =) The saturated colours are alittle too much for me. Velvia effect?!?! haha i think digital has a long long way to go!
Great image and capture. The detail and colors are great.
Amazing shot, I love the perfect flat background and as far as the crop goes I like it as is.
Thanks guys, for the comments!
hi, surfed to ur site from jcyrhs’ blog.. great moment u captured here.. very nice clean background.. i would however gone for a portait crop to remove the distracting overexposed leaf to the left and concentrate more on the beautiful damselflies.. juz my 2 cents eh.. ;p