Patience, Parenting and Butterflies

Parenting and patience are like two sides of a coin. Actually, that's probably not right since I've lost it more than a few times and that hasn't changed the fact that I'm a father of two. Anyway, I decided that it'd be good to teach the children the virtue of patience and waiting. So after noting that butterflies are attracted to the myriad of flowers in our backyard, I suggested we sit and wait and wait and wait... for butterflies to land on us and take some photographs.

After an hour or so of sitting, a Monarch like butterfly landed on Aidan's hand causing this heartfelt smile.

Zoe got tired of waiting and ended up resting on her back only to be surprised by this visitor.

Okay, anyone who has children who have a zen like peace sitting in a static state is entitled to a discount should you ever choose to utilize my photography services. My kids have difficulty sitting still while eating sushi yet alone outside amongst 101 possible things to do. As you may have guessed by now, we raised five caterpillars to butterflies using one of those ingenious butterfly kits. At one point we thought one of them drowned, but one bedtime prayer later and it was miraculously resurrected (or done drinking). It was at this point, that my sensibilities took hold and decided that we should let the butterflies go before forced into talking about butterfly heaven. The kids had a blast letting them go and I was smiling ear to ear seeing them enjoy God's creation.

Technical Baby Photography Notes: Both photos are taken with a 100mm Canon f2 with an extension tube to allow closer capture of the little critters (I'm referring to the butterflies, not my children). A 24" soft box is just outside the frame and supplies the additional light necessary for a smaller aperture and provides some directional light for what otherwise would have been a flat photo with Aidan's back to the sun.

Related Posts:

Macro Baby Photography - Strangely enough, I have another post on macro photography, bugs and my kids.

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If this post seems short, it's because I have a ton of work to wrap up for clients and am entertaining doing another short film during the holidays (turns out I'll have some extra PTO time).

Baby Photography Note: 1/13 sec at f4, ISO 400 at 140mm. Who says you need image stabilization to get a nice telephoto shot. My 70-200mm f4 lens was braced against a chair and a strobe light shot through a 43" umbrella gave a bit more light and latitude.

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