Monarch

Today’s awesome photograph comes to us from Justin Bowen.  Justin lives  in San Ramon, California and goes to the Academy of Art in San Francisco to study photo-documentary. In the photographer’s own words:

I was on a spontaneous trip to Kona, Hawaii, and had the privilege of staying with some friends that had thirty acres of untouched land. While on a walk through their property, I saw this butterfly sitting on a flower and thought about how perfect it would be in a photo, but I didn’t have my camera with me. I stood there a moment staring at it’s beauty and then ran as fast as I could to grab my camera. As I ran back, I turned my camera on and opened it to the widest aperture (f2.8) so I could blur the busy background. As I raised my camera to takes the photo, its wings started to move. I snapped one shot, and then it flew away.

One I got a chance to look at my lucky shot, it was one of the only times that I was completely satisfied with a photo of mine. I have never edited it or changed its composition. It was just amazing that I was able to capture the light hitting the stem and the background with its different shades of green when all I wanted was a picture of a butterfly on a flower.

Flower Market

Today’s awesome photograph comes to us from West Coast photographer TJ Cameron.  In the photographer’s own words:

I was in NYC shooting the International Bridal Market when I shot this image.  One evening I headed down to the meat packing district with two models and a few dresses to meet up with Jason Groupp (http://www.jasongphoto.blogspot.com/) who played tour guide/photographer. We were nearing the end of the shoot when I saw this outdoor flower market across the street. I immediately visualized this image in my head and knew the colors from all the flowers would be a great background for this shot. I asked one of the models to start at one end of the market and walk briskly towards the other. There was just enough light coming down from the overhang to hit her side closest to me.  I stood across a busy street and the shot took three takes do to dodging cars and and timing it so she was in the spot I wanted her in without a car in the frame. Finally, for the third take we waited until traffic was stopped by the light and we got this shot.  The movement effect comes from panning my camera with the model as she walks down the sidewalk – keeping her sharp and blurring the background.