Nature clicks #52 - Green Clearwing Dragonfly

Green Clearwing Dragonfly

Here is another one from last weekend's "dragonfly shooting". This Green Clearwing was sitting on a branch at the edge of the woods not far from the water. It didn't let me come as close as I liked to, but at least it was cooperative and came always back to the same perch.  I had enough time to try different exposure settings and to experiment with the depth of field. What you see here is one of the pictures taken at f/4. I like it better than other ones at f/5.6 or f/8 even if the abdomen is already outside of the DOF area. As you can see the background is still a little distracting but I like how it tells the story about the habitat of this beautiful dragonfly. The macro purists will probably say, this is not a real macro shot. I agree, but my goal as a wildlife photographer is to show the animal embedded in its natural habitat. This may not always be possible and sometimes not even desirable, but it is the direction I like to head for.