Going Back for the Photograph: The Making of a Hover Fly Portrait

From a quick cell-phone discovery to the final hover fly portrait

Sometimes the photograph begins long before the camera comes out.

I first noticed these little hover flies while walking with nothing more than my cell phone. The flowers caught my attention, but it was the tiny flashes of movement around them that made me stop. I took a few quick scouting photographs—not because I expected them to be the final images, but because I wanted to remember the location and, more importantly, see what might be possible.

I knew I wanted to come back with my Nikon.

When I came back with my Nikon, the goal was simply to experiment.

I wanted to see how the hover flies were using the flowers, what perspective worked, and how much separation I could get between the subject and the surrounding garden. The first camera images were essentially test shots—a way of learning the scene and figuring out what I liked and what I didn't.

The photograph was there, but it wasn't quite the photograph.

The background still competed more than I wanted, and the quality of light wasn't giving me the soft, almost dreamlike atmosphere I had in mind.

The first camera visit was about testing the composition and seeing what was possible. But I knew I wanted softer light and more separation between the subject and the background.

So I returned again. Luckily, this was a short walk for me.

That third visit is when everything started to come together.

The softer light, the positioning, the background—and a little patience—helped transform a simple garden scene into the dreamy, painterly image I was looking for.

Sometimes making the photograph means knowing when to walk away… and when to come back.

Where Light Takes Flight — the final image.