Species: Morpho Menelaus | Location: Mindo, Ecuador, Ecuador
Of all the photos I took this summer on our nearly 4 week trip to The Cloud Forest, The Amazon basin, The Galápagos Islands and Peru, I keep coming back to this one taken at The Mindo Butterfly Farm in the Cloud Forest as my personal favorite. It had to be cropped in from the original image more than I'd have liked but after trying out various sizes and aspect ratios, I think this tight crop works the best, even if it comes at the cost of some resolution degradation. I suspect the striking colors captured here between the flower, the leaves and the butterfly rarely have the opportunity to appear together like this in a single natural and unaltered photo. And I find that each of these three components, including their shapes, play an equal and complimentary role in this image where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
About The Photographer
I have been a passionate photo hobbyist on and off for over 50 years. My primary interest has always been nature and wildlife. After retiring in 2013, following a 39 year long career at Warner Bros, my retirement gifts to myself were a new set of golf clubs, a fancy new road bike and some new Nikon photo gear. I have been playing golf 3 days a week for most weeks of the past several years. I rode my bike about a half a dozen times and it has been gathering dust in my basement ever since as I still think about taking it out again but never do. And photography remains a dear hobby passion growing more satisfying than ever as I move on into my seventies. Over the past couple years I updated my Nikon gear again and found my interest in photography take another leap. I found myself devoting more time with it as I became more critical of what it took to satisfy my vision of what defined a "good shot" for me. At my local Marin County Fair in Northern California this year I entered a photo competition for the first time and got 2 honorable mention ribbons. And for the first time one of my photos went up for sale and sold (for $250). A little validation can go a long way, and yet like my bike that I think about riding again but never do, I continue to think about setting up a photo website of my own, or an Instagram page, or a Flicker page, or even a Facebook page but never do. Maybe one of these days, just not yet, not today, maybe tomorrow. This summer my wife and I went on our first Natural Habitat trip and it was the best vacation a photo hobbyist who loves taking pictures of birds and wildlife could possibly imagine. We spent nearly a month in Ecuador and Peru, visiting The Cloud Forest, the Amazon, The Galápagos Islands and Peru. I literally took almost 20,000 photos. I have spent the past month going through them all, deleting most, and trying to find the "good ones". The ones where good natural lighting, good camera settings, good subject and a special moment in time and place all converge, Today I am submitting 5 of those that I think are amongst my good ones from that trip in this contest.Vote for this photo, and you’ll be entered for the chance to win a $500 Visa Gift Card or a $500 WWF Donation!
You can vote once a day. Each time you submit a vote, you’ll receive an email with a voting confirmation link. To make your vote count, you must click on the confirmation link each time!
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Vote for this photo in the Nat Hab's 2024 Guest Photo Contest People’s Choice Awards! You can vote once per day, and each time you vote you’ll be entered for the chance to win a $500 Visa Gift Card or a $500 WWF Donation.
