Photographing Butterflies

One of the things I enjoy about photography is looking for colors and contrast, which is perhaps why I enjoy photographing flowers so much; butterflies also fit well in this category. Here are some examples of butterfly photography I have done, nothing too amazing, but hopefully they convey a couple of ideas I've had.

If you ever get the chance to go to a butterfly farm, do it. There are generally lots of beautiful specimens there, plus lots of very nice flowers, so you get the best of it all. The only thing to be careful of is humidity - the butterfly houses tend to be very warm and very humid, which is generally not a good thing for an expensive piece of electronic equipment.

The tricky part, as always, is composition. How are the butterflies positioned on flowers or other objects? How do they fit into, or stand out from, the scenery around them?

This first example is from a butterfly house in Mindo, Ecuador.

I liked this because of the vivid contrasting colors, but also the plant - the stem kind of leads through the picture, but not in a distracting way. The butterfly is also nicely defined against the background - you can see it well and it doesn't become part of the background.

Here's another one, from a butterfly garden in Stratford Upon Avon, England. While I like the colors, particularly the purple that stands out, the black of the butterfly does kind of fade into the background, making it difficult to distinguish from the background.

 Another one from Mindo. I liked how the flowers compliment the butterfly yet it is nicely distinguished from the background.

 
While the background with all of the flowers is kind of busy, I hope it doesn't distract too much from the butterfly.