4.11.2012

A few butterflies from our local butterfly house

I love the exposures I got on these butterflies this past weekend. The glass canopy at Westford's Butterfly Place is a very effective light diffuser, but in addition there were slight overcast conditions.

I enjoyed every minute of my 1.5 hour "shoot" last Saturday.  The Butterfly House opens their door an hour early for photographers, a couple of times per month.  It's $3 extra on top of the normal $12 daily charge.  Because I went there a bunch of times last year, I bought 10 daily admission coupons discounted to $60. There's no expiration date.

One reason I like this first hour is that the owner leaves the heaters and blowers off, which keeps the butterflies a bit lethargic and therefore more captive subjects. 

Unfortunately many of the specimens I found were rather beaten up.  The walls around the butterfly house are concrete block material, perhaps 20 feet high.  The roof is made from glass panels.  I recall someone saying that because the butterflies hover and rest frequently in the upper corners of the concrete walls that it is against the rough concrete that their wings get a bit beaten up.

Below are a few small images.  I have a set of 22 larger images posted on my Web site, here:

http://www.peterfraileyphoto.com/butterflies2012apr7







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