Most dragonflies appear to like the sunlight, but this Mocha Emerald dragonfly (Somatochlora linearis) that I encountered yesterday seemed to prefer the heavy shade, which made it a bit of a challenge to photograph.
I was walking along a small stream, moving in an out of patches of sunlight when I first spotted the dragonfly. I had my long telephoto lens on my camera and took some initial shots, which turned out blurry—there didn’t seem to be enough light for my camera’s autofocus to function well. I quickly set up my tripod and tried to focus manually, but that didn’t work out too well either.
Fortunately, the dragonfly seemed oblivious to my actions. I switched to my 180mm macro and moved in closer and finally was able to see well enough to focus. Because of the limited amount of light, I had the ISO cranked up to 1600 and used the pop-up flash.
As I moved about trying to get a better angle, I slid twice down the slippery bank of the stream into the shallow water and somehow managed to lose one of the little rubber feet of my tripod, but managed to get a couple of decent shots of this shadow-dwelling dragonfly.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
It was nice of the dragonfly to sit still for that and nice of you to go through it all to get the shots.
I think a lot of readers don’t realize what we have to go through sometimes, so telling them adds interest to the post.
Thanks, Allen. Some of the time, the process of getting a shot can be as interesting as the shot itself.
Your tenacity paid off, Michael, for these photos are exquisite. The way you caught the light on the wings in the second photo– it’s breathtaking.
Thanks, Jet. I tend to be both patient and persistent, which sometimes pays off in the kind of photos that I like to take. However, I still believe that luck continues to play a huge role too.
Sent from my iPhone
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