Spicebush swallowtail butterfly in green
Few weeks ago, I went with my camera to see the live butterfly garden in Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. We have beautiful Reiman Gardens with a butterfly pavillion just an hour away, but you never have enough of butterflies, right?
It was a very frustrating experience. I stayed there probably three times as long as other folks, hoping to get some pictures. But the light in the pavillon was just awful. Any automatic mode, like Aperture priority was getting me absolutely nowhere. The manual mode was not getting me anywhere, either. The light was incredibly bright, but falling from defined spots of the ceiling, making some spots overexposed, and some in dark shadow. The light was also reflecting from wet surfaces of the leaves. Add to that the fact that most butterflies were not in colors contrasting with the environment- I am glad that there are those few keepers left in my Lightroom library.