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| Vanessa Cardui |
The last week has seen an incredible migration of Vanessa Carduis (also known as "Painted Lady" or "Cosmopolitan") through Israel. The estimates talk about 2 billion (!) of those beautiful butterflies flying through Israel in just a few days. The air is filled with them, and that is quite a site to behold! Apparently a combination of weather-related factors have caused them to multiply way beyond the usual, so their yearly migration is especially impressive this year.
What do I like about this photo? The unusual angle, showing a view you usually cannot observe with the naked eye. You can essentially see the "face" of the butterfly, with very nice details! The background is also interesting. I used an open aperture (f/6.3 - the most open my lens supports at the focal length of 400mm that I used) to create a shallow depth of field, so the butterfly is in focus but the background is blurred out, so the butterfly really stands out. The color contrast also highlights the butterfly rather nicely.
What would I want to improve? A bit of a different angle of the wing relative to the body would have shown the patterns on it more clearly, as well as caused the left wing to be more visible.