Taking close up pictures of insects is really nice. Frame-filling pictures with a nice blurred background are much fun to make. However, after having done that for a while, I’d like to make pictures that tell a bit of a story. One way of achieving this is to place the insect more in its natural environment. Today I went with Geert to my local patch to see if we could find more Scarlet Darters. I found a few, but they weren’t very willing to cooperate. One of the things I had in mind for a while was to make pictures of dragonflies or butterflies with my wide angle lens. This means you have to get really close to the animal (ca. 30cm) and that you’ll also get a nice view on its habitat. Because of this you not only have to be really careful not to scare the butterfly while coming this close, but you also have to make sure the background has a nice composition. Not something which is very easy. Here you see two of my first results, not too bad, I think. Definitely worth another try.