This is a Monarch Butterfly Chrysalis on the morning that the butterfly emerged. This is the third in my Monarch Butterfly series, the first two being:
The Monarch Butterfly lays her eggs on a swan plant:
The eggs hatch and we now have the caterpillar:
The Chrisalys is hanging from a ceramic pot plant holder. The lighting is natural light and the coloured background comes from my sons paddling pool which is also on the deck. When I looked on the camera's LCD I thought this was an excellent image but now I see it on the "big screen" I see the reflection of my sons paddling pool in the water drop at the bottom as a big distratction. I couldn't reshoot as it was only a few minutes after I took this shot that the Butterfly emerged from the Chrysalis :(
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* Hilight contrast -71
* Saturation +34
* Sharpness +25
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Contrast +13
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Post Challenge: Wow, a score over 7 and a ribbon to go with it! All week this was bouncing between 6.9 and 7.1 so I was never sure if I'd get the 7 or not! And another cool thing is that this image makes the front page for this lens!
Here's the original
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Place: 3 out of 131 Avg (all users): 7.1244 Avg (commenters): 7.6522 Avg (participants): 6.7895 Avg (non-participants): 7.1925 Views since voting: 10399 Views during voting: 426 Votes: 225 Comments: 42 Favorites: 13 (view)
This is the only stage of the Monarch that I dont have. This is fabulous. Congrats on the yellow, I hope that I am lucky enough to see one someday as I have a lot of Milkweed plants on our 6 acres and I make sure they dont get cut down. This is the caterpillar's staple diet and too many farmers and people are cutting them down.
Beautiful shot!! I didnt even notice the reflection until I read your notes.
It's a nice picture, but I have to agree with you about the distracting reflection. This past summer I raised some Spicebush Swallowtail butterflies. It's real interesting. Congratulations!
I wondered what the heck that reflection was... Didn't bother me in the least, but made me bloody curious, lol! Congrats on the yellow! Awesome stuff. (hmmm... I wonder if we could get a kiwi on the front page every week...)
Congrats! This is an amazing image and something that I think a very great number of us have not seen for ourselves. Your Monarch Butterfly series is amazing, and even more awesome is that they are all challenge entries that have not been shoehorned in. Great job!!
I don't know if I'm meant to be making out something important in the bottom drop of water? The support in the top right corner is abit intrusive, which knocks it down a bit.
I'm not sure about the background here... I think I would have preferred something more natural looking. But it's such a great close up of a chrysalis! Nice!
Great detail and some pretty funky colors in the background. Thats probably my only complaint as it takes away from the colors you have working on the cocoon.
Chrysalis of Life
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