Stag Night at the Bluet Damselfly Singles Bar

During a hike in the Castle Rock Open Space in Walnut Creek, California, I strolled down to a favorite place for my dogs to cool off, drink some water, and lie in the shade. As a sidebar, I don't recommend this any more because my Rhodesian Ridgeback got a very bad case of hemorrhagic gastroenteritis brought on by some bug in the water. Anyway, while one of my dogs was getting herself sick, I took some photos of some bluet damselflies -- all male -- handing around the water and reeds.


Complicating the shots, because this was in shade, I had to use 400 ISO, high by my standards. The lens is my Tamron-made Quantary 70-300. The lens is prone to purple fringing, exaggerated at high ISOs.



Purple fringing, however, isn't an issue in monochrome photography. So I converted one of the images to black and white in Photoshop. Here's the original:



You can see some purple fringing around some of the highlights, especially highlights that touch dark spots.

But I called this post "Stag Night at the Bluet Damselfly Singles Bar." Why? Because there were about eight or ten male bluets hanging around. Here I was able to catch a few of them in one shot.


Nature is pretty great. As much fun as buildings, bridges, and statues are to photography, not much tops randomly encountered nature. For me, Castle Rock is about the best place to hike in Walnut Creek. My dogs can go around off-leash, the hills have a nice array of flora and fauna, and with a keen eye there are nearly unlimited photographic opportunities. Plant leaves, for instance:


An adjacent hill in Brooktree. A red tail hawk or golden eagle circling above an old tree makes for a decent image.


Downed trees and myriad other natural objects provide great latitude for black and white photography.


And, if you're luckier than me, you can catch a spider or other, larger predators.