Black Swallowtail First Moment in the Sun

[Bill Jobes]

I had been watching the black swallowtail's green caterpillar with interest for weeks. One day, I awoke to find its chrysalis on the twig of a fennel plant.

When it was breaking from the chrysalis, I didn't have my camera in hand.

So while I arrived too late to record the full emerging process, I was fortunate to see it here, just a very few moments after it broke from the chrysalis, which is seen in the lower right corner.

Nikon D7100, Sigma 150 macro, 1/500, F/7.1, ISO 400. Very bright morning sunlight. Hand-held and cropped.

C & C always encouraged and much-appreciated.

[Allen Sparks]

Hi Bill, Nice story you captured here with the inclusion of the chrysalis. Nice sharpness on the butterfly and good detail in the blacks. May want to clone out the oof green stem intersecting wing in LLC. well done... -- Allen

[Bill Jobes]

Thanks Alan. And that's a great suggestion on cloning the green stem. The butterfly would indeed look better against a purer BG.

[Mitch Haimov]

The wings look fantastic--great job of exposing for the subject. I agree that including the chrysalis adds interest and helps the image to tell a story. Assuming you shot in RAW, can you do a second, darker conversion that saves the highlights in chrysalis? It's an important part of the image, so would be great if you could mask in a better exposed version (maybe with the stem it is on and a few other highlights). There is also something funky going on between that stem and the right edge near the UR corner that shouldn't be hard to fix.

[Bill Jobes]

Thanks Mitch, for the good ideas.

The bright sun had blown all recoverable extreme highlights that I could detect.

That funky anomaly in the UR is an artifact from my lazy stab a selectively reducing the brightness there. Which I did as well, in the chrysalis -- and it still looks blown !

Thanks for the eagle eye on the flaw.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Bill I like the shot, the only suggestion I have is to try for a little more detail in the blacks. On a butterfly such as this I would probably have used fill in flash.
I find the ACR converter in CS6 excellent for putting a little lift in the darks, it does this without making the image grey or muddy as the whites are on a different slider.

[Bill Jobes]

Good suggestions, Jonathan -- thanks ! Fill flash would have sure helped.

I don't normally work with the ACR converter, as my workflow is ViewNX to NX2 to PS6.

The alternate path to PS6 is sure worth a look.

[Anita Bower]

I like the story told by this image, and by your description. I've never had the patience to do what you did--find a chrysalis and keep track of it. Good for you!

[Bill Jobes]

Thanks, Anita ! It wasn't a heavy lift to follow the progress of the caterpillar and chrysalis, as the fennel plant is in a wall garden on my front patio.

It's funny -- the afternoon before it emerged, there was a lot of bright sun on the chrysalis and I was thinking 'it must be really warm in there, I bet it comes out soon.'

Sure enough, the next morning it did just that ! Unfortunately, when I spotted it, I was running late to an appointment.

But the Swallowtail drama took precedence, and it was back inside to grab the gear and get to work ! :S3:

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Bill. How fortunate you were to photograph this pristine specimen - and include the chrysalis in the frame as well! Very nice job with the butterfly and a better exposure on the chrysalis would really have put this one over the top. In a perfect world, using a diffusion screen would have really helped with the bright light. :S3: Overall, this is very nicely done!

[Bill Jobes]

Many thanks, Steve !

[Mitch Carucci]

Glorious. This images jumps right at you. Perfect.

[Bill Jobes]

Thank you, Mitch.