DAY 164

NATURE & LANDSCAPES

Monarch Migration

A VISUAL FEAST ON WINGS

Poetry in motion. Fluidity. Nonstop action. These terms could describe many different things. An athlete going high to catch a pass along the sidelines, dragging his toes at the last second to complete the pass. A skater flawlessly executing a pirouette that scores a 10 at the Olympic Games. In the natural world, they could describe a cheetah galloping across the savannah in pursuit of a gazelle or millions of gallons of water flowing over the rapids of a raging river.

Or it might just be a bunch of butterflies flittering around. Observing a monarch butterfly migration gives you a feast of colorful plumage moving so constantly you’re not sure where one stops and another one starts. These orange and black beauties gather in tremendous numbers and can be seen whirling and darting in an orgy of motion.

A photograph of a monarch butterfly migration can include anything from a stop-action shot of an individual butterfly, using a high shutter speed, to a group shot that gives the perception of motion. For the latter, you need to shoot at around 1/30^th of a second, which will provide an impressionist-type portrait. —WTD