I went over to Fort Harrison State Park this morning and instead of heading to the area where I’ve seen the most butterflies, I went in another direction.  It wasn’t that I didn’t expect to see butterflies in the old location, the question was whether I could find happiness in subjects other than butterflies (soft plaintive violins in the background).

A leaf in the water.  Not bad if all we want to do is aim the camera away from butterflies.  But not too good either.  Try again.

Jewelweed is nice, very bright and I can’t say I have ever noticed an insect like that before; one of the benefits of macro photography.

Now I like that.  I can’t count the number of times I’ve walked by little beauties like this.  Once again, a benefit of going out with a macro lens.  I’ve noticed that when I have a telephoto lens on the camera, I tend to see more telephoto opportunities.  Today I was using my 100 mm macro lens.  This lens works as a moderate telephoto but I tend to think of it more in its macro application.

Here’s the high point of the morning.

I love back lit shots.  A very important lesson came out of this morning’s jaunt.  I was headed east on the Fall Creek Trail because I picked up the trail at its western end – walking toward the sun, accidentally creating the opportunity for back lit shots.  There were many opportunities.  I went a couple of hundred yards past the area of this shot and turned around looking for what other opportunities I could find.  There weren’t many.  If you like back lighting try going east in the morning and west in the evening.  Writing this down is a little embarrassing.  Of course that is what we would do to get back lit shots.  This is one of those points that is so obvious it needs to be stated.

And yes, there is happiness beyond butterflies.