Thursday, July 02, 2009

Firefly, on and off

Firefly, off
Firefly, off

I’m sure that I really disrupted things for this female firefly last evening. I’m assuming that she’s female because firefly females tend to not fly while flashing and this gal stayed put on a blade of grass in my backyard during the entire photography session. Mr. Firefly will fly about and flash his light, hoping to catch the attention of a female, who will light up in return if interested in a little romance.

I took several shots of this lady with my macro setup while lying on the ground. This particular firefly may or may not have been impressed with the off-camera strobe going off above her in the deepening twilight, but several others landed about me while I was shooting. I presume they were males who were probably thinking, “Holy cow!”

I dialed down the flash and slowed the shutter speed hoping that the combo would help show up this lady’s tail light should she decide to let it shine. She started crawling up and down the blade of grass, flashing her light every so often. It was tough keeping her framed and in focus as she moved about, and each time she lit up, I hit the shutter button and fired some light right back at her.

Firefly, on
Firefly, on

The best shot of the bunch shows the yellowish glow of her light very nicely, but because of her orientation toward the camera, the focus is not where I wanted it to be. Hopefully, I’ll have better success should I try again this evening.

Here’s an ethical question, though – does firing several hundred watts of light at a firefly constitute sexual harassment?

Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.

4 comments:

Dawning Inspiration said...

Thanks for your humor! It's made my morning!

Wanda said...

Yes, James, I think you better be doggone careful with sexual harassment thing... Did you even ask permission to shoot her "tail lights".


You made my day too....(((smile)))

LOL:Wanda

n8 said...

It's obviously been a while since you've done your annual sexual harassment training course at The Company. I suppose I have to let you off the hook though, since you haven't worked there in almost a year.

Anyway, not to get too technical and all, but in order for an individual to make a sexual harassment claim, one of the criteria is that the offended party must be considered a "reasonable person". Perhaps if this lady firefly had a really good attorney, they might be able to twist those words around in their favor, but I think you're safe in this case.

Beautiful captures, by the way ;-) ... as always

James said...

Nate, HR would be very proud of you.