Butterfly

Photography

Butterfly Room, Pacific Science Center, Seattle, WA

Butterfly Pavilion Denver, CO

Note: Over the years the focus of my website has shifted more towards climbing trip reports, so I stopped actively updating my photography section around 2015 or so. But, there are still several great photos here, so enjoy!

Pacific Science Center Butterfly Room, Seattle, WA

On July 26, 2006, I went to the butterfly room in the Pacific Science Center in Seattle and spent a few hours having fun with my macro lens. Here are a few of my favorite photos.

Click here to go to my page devoted to my bug photography.

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Butterfly Pavilion Denver, CO

On June 4, 2023 — now living in Estes Park, Colorado — I spent an unseasonably rainy day at the Butterfly Pavilion. It was fun to dust off my macro lens for a day.

Swallowtail butterfly. This was my favorite photo from the day.
Heliconius species.
Heliconius species.
Not sure what kind.
Heliconius species.
Paper kite.
Owl butterfly.
Heliconius species.
Butterfly on my finger.
Heliconius species. Some of the butterflies here are marked with numbers, for research purposes.
Butterfly chart. This chart didn't seem to quite represent the selection of butterflies in the butterlfy room.
Vibrant pink flower.
Swirly plant.
Colorful tropical leaves.
Colorful tropical leaves.
In the parking lot on the way to my car, I got distracted by photographing rain drops....
Shallow puddles enable ripples, because they are much thinner than they are wide. The balance between the surface force – between the water puddle and the air above it – and the gravitational force tips in favor of surface force. This is key, since the surface force depends on the curvature of the water surface, whereas the gravitational force does not. Here is a great article about the mathematics of a raindrop hitting a puddle. I always wanted to spend my life researching the mathematics of stuff like this, but somehow my PhD studies never led to anything quite so fascinating.
Apparently, when raindrops hit the surface, they bounce and fragment into several different sizes. Here is a good article about it.
Fragmenting into several diffferent sizes.
Plop.
Colorado seems to be the new Pacific Northwest.