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Damselfly Love
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Damselfly Love

by Yun Gao

Gallery: Macro & Close-upPosted December 16, 2014131 views8 comments
A pair of damselflies on pickerel weed. Sorry I don't know the damselfly species.

D90, 105mm, f/14, 1/160, ISO 800, +0.3 EV, handheld, 66% of full frame. July 2014, Montreal.

Thanks for looking.

Comments

8 comments
Comment posted by scott lanz on December 17, 2014 at 9:05 AM
Outstanding, Yun. Excellent capture of the behavior with very good subject detail and a nice, natural bg. Top notch image of these mating damselflies. :toast:
Registered on November 14, 2003, 840 Posts, 12902 Comments
Comment posted by Balan Vinod on December 17, 2014 at 11:55 PM
Yen ..this is a beautiful image ..and the thumbnail was a bit deceptive ...Fine detail ..and a lovely bg for this image. May be I would have gone a tad bit lower and got this perfect parallel ..how ever you dof has sorted it out. The larger version looks even better..

Regarding your comment on my image...we tend to have a higher diversity in the tropics ..which results in a multitude of insect species...and they are from my weekend photo shoots...

Balan Vinod :toast:
Registered on March 20, 2006, 889 Posts, 2312 Comments
Comment posted by Howard Cheek on December 20, 2014 at 7:56 AM
Interesting light & comp, great technique to get both in with this much detail Yun.
Great BG & natural colors, well done. :toast:
Registered on July 24, 2008, 1201 Posts, 10758 Comments
Comment posted by Nancy Lea Sandy on December 20, 2014 at 10:29 AM
Excellent bg. The damselflies look like they are shaping themselves into letters along the stem. Neat
Registered on January 24, 2011, 576 Posts, 6942 Comments
Comment posted by Mark Seaver on December 21, 2014 at 3:19 PM
Yun, a fine catch of this pair, with her depositing an egg (or eggs). Excellent sharpness on the two damsels and a fine background from the arrowhead leaf. Two keys for ID; 1) the wing position says "spreadwing", which rules out a lot of blue damsels, and 2) the size of her ovipositor. There are three pale blue (pruinose blue) spreadwing damsels in your area (Northern, Sweetflag, and Lyre-tipped spreadwings) but the size of the female's ovipositor is characteristic of the Sweetflag spreadwing (Lestes forcipatus), with the latin name also substantiating that clue. :biggrin: (Info from Dragonflies and Damselflies of the east by Dennis Paulson)
Registered on January 23, 2011, 1103 Posts, 17270 Comments
Comment posted by Yun Gao on December 22, 2014 at 12:46 AM
Thanks everyone for the comments!
Mark, thank you very much for the information on the ID. They are so similar in appearance. Need to read more next year.
Registered on September 11, 2012, 267 Posts, 1621 Comments
Comment posted by Jim Zablotny on December 30, 2014 at 12:40 PM
Beautiful--I saw this one right after my eye surgery and I'm glad that I waited to comment on this image. Details are very crisp and the depth of field is perfect. Getting both damselflies in focus and tack sharp with a handheld shot is tough and you nailed it :toast: :toast: .................Jim
Registered on January 17, 2004, 705 Posts, 3594 Comments
Comment posted by Swathiraj G on January 15, 2015 at 9:53 AM
Hi Yun, Great image of damsels on job :wink: Hope because of the situation you took a slight top down shot..but you got the details well...
Registered on April 26, 2014, 71 Posts, 153 Comments