Ever seen a back-lit monarch butterfly?
It's like a stained-glass window in a centuries-old steepled church where you cannot see the ugliness of the world, but its beauty.
Monarchs are like that. Those iconic butterflies excite, inspire and transform you, just like stained glass windows.
We captured these images at dusk of a monarch fluttering around an aphid-infested milkweed, a tropical milkweed, Asclepias curassavica, on Aug. 7 in Vacaville, Calif.
The orange butterfly was nothing but a blur until we stopped the action (1/4000 of a second) with a 200mm macro lens mounted on a Nikon D500.
The beauty (the monarch) eclipsed the beast (oleander aphids) in a moment of time.
Attached Images:
A monarch butterfly, looking like a stained glass window, rises from a tropical milkweed, Asclepias curassavica, on Aug. 7 in Vacaville, Calif. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Up, up and away. The monarch rises from a tropical milkweed, Asclepias curassavica, on Aug. 7 in Vacaville, Calif. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)