Madame Dragonfly

Oh, hello... What did you say? If I'd mind posing for you? Not at all.

I'm just sitting here watching some silly boys trying to impress me.

Did you get a good shot of my tail there?

Wait, let me just fix myself up a bit. Wash my face...

Did you notice the transparancy of my wings?

I even get a coloured shadow in this sunlight...

Now, if you look from this side, you'll see that my dress

is not all brown, it's got some shiny green in it, too.

Pretty isn't it? Goes well with the copper tones, I think.

And don't forget to look closely at the pattern!

Very intricate, if I may say so myself... And shiny, too!

Now, lets watch the boys... See them out there?

Looks like they've grown tired of chasing each other

and are sitting down for a rest. Won't stay that way for long,

though, if I know them right - and I do! I kind of doubt you'll

be able to catch them with that little zoomy thing of yours...

Silly things! One standing on his head,

the other one fluttering his wings like a maniac...

Down by the river in the park today, I saw dragonflies again!

The female, sitting on a rail beside the river, was kind enough to let me take a whole series of shots of her in close-up macro mode. I cropped the photos just a little bit and used some mild enhancing or sharpening effects on one or two of them; but they were otherwise really quite good as they were, straight out of the camera. The "boys", however - the beautiful blue males - were really hard to catch with my little camera today, as they were chasing each other in the air over the river... I only got two shots of them (resting on water plants in the river below me) that were sharp enough to do anything with. These I cropped very hard, and sharpened; and then, to make them a bit more interesting, I also added geometic effects (in Paint Shop Pro) that seemed to fit with the movements/position of each of them. (Round for one, and horizontal perspective for the other.)

If you like dragonflies, you might also enjoy this earlier post: http://islandofvoices.blogspot.com/2009/07/dragonflies-in-courtship.html