What do you do when a dragonfly lands on you? My first reaction, of course, was to take a photo when this Autumn Meadowhawk (Sympetrum vicinum) landed on my leg on Friday.
The good news was that I had a macro lens on my camera, so I knew that I would be able to focus on the dragonfly. The bad news was that it was a 180mm macro lens, so I had to go through acrobatic contortions to try to achieve enough distance to fit the entire dragonfly into the frame. I also had to move like a ninja to keep from scaring away my subject.
In the end, I managed to get a decent shot of the dragonfly by standing as tall as I could and shooting straight downward, although my gray sweatshirt billowed out a bit and obscured the view of the dragonfly’s feet. For those of you who are not familiar with Autumn Meadowhawks, they are small dragonflies with bodies about an inch or so in length (25mm).
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Interesting to see the contortions and effort you were willing to go through so your art would not be compromised. In the end you got a pretty stunning image.
WOW! Talk about timing.
Too bad the post didn’t come with a video of your acrobatics.
Most people would have probably thought it creepy and shooed it away but not a nature photographer.
Dragonflies like this are so light that you can barely feel their presence. I have had them perch all over me and occasionally can coax one to perch on an extended finger.
That’s usually not the problem we’re faced with when photographing dragonflies!
Good thing you already had your macro lens on. 🙂
Indeed. My long telephoto lens has a minimum focusing distance of more than 9 feet. I have long legs, but they are not that long. 🙂