Tattered. Battered. Beautifully so.

Sometimes you get lucky. Rarely, when photographing nature will you get a subject as cooperative as I got this morning. Cooperative probably isn’t the right word, because this subject probably would be angry at me for taking as many pictures of it as I did if it could only look in the mirror just like we do on our bad days.

This butterfly has seen better days. It reminds me of the Rolling Stones song – “Shattered”. Somewhere in the song (actually several times) Mick Jagger sings….“I’m in tatters.” ”Shoobee.” Or, something like that. You know you’re singing it right now.

But this butterfly hung around on our patio for at least 10 minutes. I could get close. I could get at it from any angle. All angles. Seriously, I think I snapped 65 shots. I have kept 25, so far. I could see every imperfection it had. And it had lots of imperfection. But, it also had beauty in all its tattered glory.

Click for a large view.

I like the view of the butterfly against the grey bokeh background. It almost looks 3d in full screen view. I took this shot looking into the direction of the rising sun.

I’m learning that even when your subject specimen is not perfect, you can get lucky with angles of lighting and point of view. For me, “lucky” being the operative word.

Tattered. The waterdrop refractions are a nice bonus, though.

Are you getting tired of this yet? Only 21 more to go. Kidding.

Looking all stealthy and stuff.

OK. This is it. Now, you have got to click this one. I have never seen the light reflect the colors on the antennae quite like this. I hope the upload process here preserves that like I see it on my screen.

Pride and joy and dirty dreams and still surviving on the street
And look at me, I’m in tatters, yeah
I’ve been battered, what does it matter
Does it matter, uh-huh
Does it matter, uh-huh, I’m a shattered

Rolling Stones

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