Common Morpho, I

This Common Morpho was kind enough to sit still while I photographed it head-on.  It’s a large butterfly with brilliant blue on the upperside of its wings and brown with black and yellow eyespots on the undersides.

Eastern Carpenter Bee Landing On Thin-Leaved Sunflower

During a photo outing to shoot wildflowers I decided to take a few backlit shots.  In the process I began tracking a few Eastern Carpenter Bees as they passed by.  I was lucky enough to capture this one as it prepared to land on a thin-leaved sunflower.

I like the way backlit flowers almost glow but that’s pretty easy to predict, setup and shoot.  After all, except for the wind, the flowers aren’t really moving.  I was really pleased with the lighting of the bee in this photo.

Like most of the photos on my blog, you can click the image to open a larger version of the photo.  Check out all the pollen covering this bee.  This clearly wasn’t its first flower of the day.