It has been FOREVER since I posted!!!! I have been taking lots of pictures but .. honestly, this has just fallen to too low a priority to take the time to get everything uploaded. So, I have a serious backlog of stuff to share. But I'll start with the most recent.
So my mother and I took my youngest brother, Ben, over to the Butterfly exhibit at Como Conservatory and man, was that a great photographic challenge! Both Ben and I got some really beautiful pictures, both of the butterflies and of some of the conservatory flowers as well - just because we can never resist.
This one is probably one of my favorite pics of the day:
But this one also has it's own charm:
Ben got this shot that just blew me away:
The next group needs a bit of explanation. There was one particular kind of butterfly there called a Blue Morpho. They proved to be EXCEEDINGLY elusive to capture on camera. They really wouldn't settle down anywhere and they had very quick and erratic light paths. Both Ben and I spent more than an hour trying to find and/or chase a few down. We managed to get a few weaker shots but because the challenge was so immense, we are still pretty proud that we have anything to show for all the effort.
We saw a LOT of this in there but catching it on camera was a sheer miracle:
of course, now THIS picture is a zoomed in one that shows why it was so hard to see them sitting anywhere - turns out I have several pics of them just sitting on flowers but we didn't know it was THEM because the underside of the wing is so different!
We also had a lot of fun because butterflies don't care about landing on people so we'd been there about 10 seconds when one landed on my mom's back. Of course, she didn't even know which kind until she saw the pictures at home. But after a few minutes, one picked up on Ben's camera as a place that looked interesting.
and then when I decided in the pursuit of the Blue Morpho that I was going to set up shop on a bench and try to wait for one to come to me, I made a friend.
So we all got picked by a different flutterby type and had our fun. There are a lot more fun pics in the album if you click on the picture below and type in the password "conservatory".
Photobucket Album
In addition to the butterflies, we also had to go get more flower pics because neither of us can walk by a blossom without aiming that camera. This is my best shot I think:
But Ben really nabbed a great one here:
if you want to see an album of a bunch we got, here's another picture link and you can use the same password from above:
