1. Butterflies are expert photographers
2. Butterflies are jerks

More on that in a second.

I decided a few weeks ago that I wanted to buy caterpillars in order to make my own butterflies. I like photographing them in the wild, but they seem to have the uncanny ability to take flight an 8th of a second before you’ve got focus. Moreover, if you’ve put your camera away, they call all their buddies and appear out of nowhere to mock you, opening and closing their wings in spite.

So, as my caterpillars formed their chrysalises, I eagerly awaited the moment I could shoot them at home.  I imagined trained butterflies performing for my photographic amusement. Trapeezes? No problem.

But alas, who was I kidding? All they do is sit there. While the outside of their wings is pretty, the inside is much better. So of course, they don’t show it to you. Well, they don’t show it to you until you’ve decided to adjust your flash or need to answer the phone or something. At that point it turns into the bloody Cirque du Soleil and the animals put on an amazing show.

So in short, I anticipate making millions off my scientific discovery, unless you steal it from me. I’ve only shared it with you because I thought you were cool. And you’re cool, right? ;)

As I get better at shooting them, I’ll try and remember to add more pics to this post.

Since my left arm is pretty much useless, I took my monopod to help hold up this lens, which easily weighs 784 pounds. Combine that with my camera, and my kit weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,026 pounds.

It was a fairly windy day, so shooting macro was a nightmare given that everything was flapping about. Nevertheless, it was a fun day and I did get some good shots.

Clickety-pop to make larger.