I had really expected the fascination with photographing butterflies might dim for me once I was able to “catch” them properly and reliably with my camera. But I was mistaken.

Just as soon as I was able to routinely make accurate photos of butterflies at rest on a digital camera, I challenged myself to catch them on film, then in flight, and next in their mid-air mating ballet.

I have always found a way to up the ante, year over year, summer garden season to summer garden season.

Representational photos led to more impressionistic ones.

The ephemeral sense of being in a garden on a summer afternoon in the easy company of butterflies that have let down their guard has been what I’ve been attempting to focus on, freeze and hold the past few years.

It’s an impossible remit for a handful of frames each year, but I have continued to find joy in the challenge.

And now, as we sit here on the cusp of peak butterfly season in my parts, I don’t yet know if or how this evergreen project will shift. But I am pretty confident that I’ll have collected a few kaleidoscopes-worth of butterflies before the garden is put to bed in the autumn.

With a decade’s worth of images in my archive, I really can’t imagine ever being done with them.

Keep your eyes wide open,
Debbie