The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
The Mexican Amberwing is a small dragonfly that lives in the thick weeds along the edge of the pond. This dragonfly had just launched from his perch.
My mission in these four photographs was to show the remarkable independence of the dragonfly’s four wings. The images were processed for clarity, but not for aesthetics. The camera was capturing these images every 0.008 seconds.
OM Systems OM-1 Mark II Post-processing in Affinity Photo 2
I love the clarity, texture and detail of the Mexican Amberwing. I particularly enjoy the fourth image that separates the leaf from the insect. I just wonder if a closer crop or a square crop would bring the insect closer to the viewer and remove a lot of the background that doesn’t really add to the image.
You could also try a vertical view.
Such an interesting coloured insect.
Cheers
Diny
Hi Russell, really interesting series showing various flight poses. I have not seen this species before so this is a real treat. My favorite photo is also the last showing the spread wings and not intersecting with the grass blade.
I agree that the independent movements of all four wings is very interesting to see.
I knew from articles I’ve read that they were independent but seeing the action in still images like this really drives the point across visually.
Mexican Amberwing is an appropriate name for them.
A very cool series, Russell. It looks like the camera manufacturer’s need to step up their game to keep up with these. Even at one frame every .008 seconds, it’s a bit difficult to figure out how the wings got from point A to point B. The detail and clarity of these images is great.
Russ: I think you fulfilled your purpose with the series regarding the wing positions and like the others the final image is the best from an aesthetic standpoint. I would be tempted to take that one and crop some to make it a stronger stand alone shot. Really well done all. >=))>
Russ, you did a great job getting this dragonfly sharp as it’s flying. I had to spend some time looking at large versions of the earliest shots to see that the dragonfly was in front of that long leaf. It would be nice if that leaf wasn’t there, but the critters go where they want, not where we photogs want… Dragonflies are famous for being able to move all four wings independently. I’ve been trying to shoot Eastern Amberwings and their small size makes that a challenge. It looks like you Mexican Amberwing is similarly small.
Thanks for the interesting comments from all of you. As Mark mentioned, the leaf was behind the dragonfly, not in front of him. It shows how remarkably transparent dragonfly wings really are. The leaf actually was the dragonfly’s perch. He had launched from the leaf a tiny fraction of a second before the series began.
