Mostly when I’m photographing insects, the rule is to try to make sure the eyes are nice and sharp and there’s enough going on in the rest of the photo to be interesting. So if a monarch butterfly slurping up some nectar, sure, that’s really about all you need and about all you’re going to get. But look at those beautiful wings. The texture and the folds really show up nicely here. This was a significantly larger image and a pretty standard one of yet another monarch butterfly getting some chow. But when I zoomed in on my laptop screen, all this detail came to life, and I knew it had to have its day here. It’s easy to capture this kind of detail on dragonflies, as we’ve seen already. Monarchs, butterflies in general, you need just the right light at just the right angle, and you have to look past the full picture to realize cropping is the best thing you can do. That’s why I love this photo.

July 29, 2023. Cropped from a larger image. Nikon D850 (FX sensor), Tamron 100–400mm at 400mm, f/6.3, 1/2,000, ISO 400.