Someone at the Santa Cruz, California City Hall called and asked me to photograph the metamorphosis of the Monarch butterflies that were beginning to emerge in the courtyard. The landscape gardners had planted milkweed the year before to attract the butterflies in hopes of having them lay their eggs there. I photographed this catepillar munching the milkweed covered with aphids in 2004. I used a hand-held 300mm lens with image stabilization to produce the out of focus effect in order to show the catepillar clearly. The next day I went back to watch it turn into a chrysalis. It was an amazing sight to see. It only took about an hour for it to attach it's rear end to to a pillar, shed its skin, and produce a green covering to begin the magical process of turning into a Monarch Butterfly.
1 comment:
beautiful shot.
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