Pacific Green Sphinx Moth on Our Porch

[best appreciated at full size against black]

Last year I found a beautiful green moth on our porch, attracted by the light, and I took a picture with my older Canon camera. I wasn't really happy with the image but I had never seen a moth like this before, so I eventually cleaned it up and put it in my photostream.

Last night I let the dogs out to take care of business, and when I turned to go back in again, LOOK WHAT I FOUND!!! This image (and the first one below) are fun because I was the "director of photography." Steve offered to help set up the tripod and flash, and since the moth was so high up, we got a chair and he stood on it to position the camera exactly as I wanted for each of these two shots. He then took the images using a special flash technique which tells the camera to meter the light on the moth, not for the whole image. A normally flashed image wouldn't work because the porch is white and the moth was coming out too dark. But this way the images turned out great! I hope you like them!! :D

This image was taken on February 10, 2012.