Theme: Monarch Leaves

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Greetings. A sure sign of fall here in Santa Cruz is the return of the Monarchs. We are on the terminal end of the long flight generation in the 4-generation annual migration to the Rockies and back. Three generations meander successively further north and east to the Rockies, then the fourth generation flies back to Santa Cruz. They begin arriving in October and are here through December. A small cluster here.



Topaz Denoise, Lightroom Dehaze, Nik SEP (modification off a high key setting). luminosity blend back color, Topaz Adjust, Solid fill layer bright orange soft light blend with some masking, Topaz Simplify modified Buz Sim, Topaz Detail

The backside of the wings are kind of dull and the clusters are typically in the shade (or mixed light with bright background light and 15-30 feet off the ground), hence the color manipulation... Thanks for looking.

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Dennis Bishop]

I really like this. And got a chuckle out of the title, too. Their location in the frrame, the contrast between the orange and black, that little bit of pink on the near leaf, and everything else being somewhat out of focus nicely brings attention to the butterflies. The varied shapes and colors in the background make it appealing. I'd remove the branch (?) in the upper left and lighten the darker greens, but it's very nice as is.

[Nancy Bell]

I, too, love the title! The monarch migration is simply remarkable and how wonderful for you to be in just the right place to witness and photograph it. This is a wonderful composition with the butterflies hanging down the curved long brown leaf and the slender diagonal branch. Even though you say the undersides of the wings are duller I would still be tempted to up the saturation just a bit on them. I agree with Dennis about removing that branch in the upper left, that dark piece in the middle top and making the greens just a bit less obvious, especially that larger solid green area in the lower right corner. Very lovely soft, mottled bkgd.

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Michael, I like the image and think it could benefit from a little cleanup of the background and perhaps a bit more color on the Monarchs. We are starting to see a rebound of the Monarch populations, which have been dwindling in recent years. Always good to see them.

[Diane Miller]

Very nice!! Although I love the muted colors (typical of the shaded location there) I think I'd be tempted to add a bit of saturation to the oranges. These guys are so hard to isolate -- you found a great group here. And you got good magnification on them -- I've been very frustrated by the focal lengths required and haven't tried revisiting them for several years. I'm curious what you used here.

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Dennis, Nancy, Kerry, Diane,

Thanks much for the comments. Much appreciated as always.

Diane - Yeah, it's a tough shoot. Even though this is practically in my backyard I've only tried to photograph them a few times... it's always frustrating conditions. I shot these early morning before they were flying. I used my 300f/2.8 with a 2x tele on my D810 (my birding rig). Maybe a 50% ish crop so say magnification equivalent to 1000-1200mm.

Anyway here's the night to day, er, backside to frontside wing color version:



Adding vibrance + sat didn't really cut it so I copied the color from another photo where the front-side color of the monarch was showing and using a solid fill of the color and a mask with soft light blending just painted the color in. Never see anything like this in nature, but... I'll post a different photo later that shows the two sides of the wings in one shot.

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Diane Miller]

Color looks perfect to me -- must be a Nikon thing!

[Anita Bower]

You are so lucky to be able to see these beautiful butterflies in large groups.\
I like the repost.

[gary ellwein]

Michael, this is a wonderful capture. I prefer the cleaned up, brighter and more saturated version. On my monitor the second version appears a bit bright with a few distracting white patches in the bg. I slightly decreased the bright tones with a curves adjustment and roughly painted away the bright patches. Once again , this is a cool image.