Fiery Skipper Feasting

If there’s one theme that has been present throughout many of my images this year, it’s that of building on previous works to create something new based on what I have learned. Over the years, and particularly 2024, I have found myself revisiting familiar concepts, compositions, and themes from earlier in my photography journey and this image of a fiery skipper butterfly resting on top of a flower to take a drink of nectar represents yet another illustration of my own growth and change.

Over a decade ago I took a picture of the same animal resting on a similar flower, in almost the exact same location as this week’s image. I shot it on my Nikon D200 with a 50mm lens–the same gear that I used to launch Weekly Fifty a few months prior. It was one of those initial images that helped me see the possibilities afforded by learning to control my camera so I could get the kind of photograph I would have never before thought possible. Basically the photography version of Tom Hanks making fire. As the years went by I built on that original with lots of other similar shots, not in pursuit of picture perfection but always striving to simply learn, grow, and improve. Sometimes it meant newer, better gear such as moving from APS-C to Full-Frame or upgrading to a high-quality macro lens instead of relying on somewhat crude (but nonetheless quite effective) close-up filters, but mostly my improvements have been due to studying the nature of photography–lighting, exposure, colors, highlights, shadows, angles, and so on.

That brings me to this week’s featured photo–not the culmination of everything that has come before, but an example of what it means to build on what has worked and learn from experience. It’s a simple image, easy to understand with a clear subject and blurry background, but that simplicity is the result of years of practice, refinement, and also a bit of good luck. The first thing to note is that the photo is basically monochromatic, consisting almost entirely of purple and yellow. (Magenta and goldenrod? Amethyst and saffron? To me, it’s just purple and yellow.) This is somewhat unique compared to similar shots I have taken, most of which have at least some greens in them for good measure. In fact, the image below was taken in the same spot about one minute earlier. It’s remarkably similar in many ways, but the tri-color scheme changes so much about the composition and how it’s seen and interpreted by the viewer.

Limiting the pallet of this week’s photo to two instead of three was a completely intentional compositional choice I made, and one that wouldn’t have even occurred to me in years past. There’s also the issue of perspective–that is, the position of the camera relative to the fiery skipper butterfly. In the image above, which is similar to many I have taken over the years, you see a profile shot of the subject. It’s fine, but it’s also not all that interesting. In the featured image for today the butterfly is angled and looking right at the camera almost as if to say hello there, and inviting you, the viewer, to join it for a short snack.

I hope to continue taking photos like this, and maybe get some shots of monarchs and other butterflies, not just now but in years to come, and not just learning but also having a lot of fun at the same time :)