Up Close and Personal with Nature’s Most Colorful Fliers

The world’s most aesthetically-pleasant insects are quite hard to catch in a shot, as they flutter from plant to plant exploring their surroundings. However, this one photographer managed to shoot a couple of butterflies in the most extraordinary photo series in the Cambridgeshire countryside.

The brilliant snapper would be retired Cambridge University lecturer Dr. John Brackenbury. The zoologist’s journey initially began when he wanted to study insect flight, and so he would take detailed, zoomed in photo, before his studies turned into a pastime.

The 71-year-old scholar said, "I have a passion for insect photography in general although for the last three years or so I have concentrated on the butterfly story.” His technique is quite interesting, as he takes up an unfamiliar approach of taking the photographs from below into the light.

“Initially I used high-speed photography as a research tool to study insect flight but gradually I became more and more drawn to the sheer beauty of these creatures that was being revealed through the camera,” he explains his method, “The photography was technically accomplished but it did not portray what I was really after - to bring the viewer so close to an insect in flight that they felt they were almost flying alongside it. So, began the concept of a 'panoramic close-up' photograph and with it the years-long search for a photographic means to portray it.”

“I go against normal photographic conventions by shooting up into the sky and often almost straight at the sun. To me, that coincidence of time and light is a kind of magic that links the viewer with the butterfly. I would describe my pictures of butterflies as an attempt to enter their world and take the viewer with me.”

images via Dr. John Brackenbury/Solent News/Shutterstock