Yesterday I made a trip to Jackson Miles Abbot Wetlands Refuge at Fort Belvoir, a local military base, and was thrilled to see a Banded Pennant dragonfly (Celethemis fasciata), a cool-looking species that fellow photographer Walter Sanford spotted at that location on 24 July. (Check out his posting of that encounter to see some more shots of a Banded Pennant.)
Like other pennant dragonflies, such as the Halloween Pennant that I photographed earlier this summer, the Banded Pennant likes to perch at the very tip of tall grass and other vegetation. A pennant dragonfly is sometimes easier to spot than those species that perch lower, but the slightest breeze sets the dragonfly in motion and makes it more difficult to photograph.
I spotted only a single Banded Pennant yesterday, but managed to get a number of shots before it flew away, though most of them were from pretty much the same angle. As I looked over the images, I couldn’t decide which was the most effective way to present the dragonfly. Was it better to maximize the size of the dragonfly by cropping it a square or to emphasize the height of the vegetation by using a vertical format?
In the end, I didn’t choose, but instead presented a shot in each of the two formats? Do you have a preference for one over the other?
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
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