How To Photograph Dragonflies

Last Sunday, on what felt like the first truly sunny day in months, I fulfilled a dream of photographing my most-wanted UK animal species on camera - the Beautiful Demoiselle.

These stunning metallic-blue dragonflies, active from late May, thrive along small, fast-flowing streams in the west of the UK and much of Europe. The males perch on bank-side vegetation, performing mesmerising flight displays to attract passing females. 

Do It Yourself: This is one of the hardest creatures I've photographed in action - harder than hunting peregrine falcons or boxing hares! With little margin for error, I manually pre-focused just in front of the grassy background, anticipating the demoiselles' leaps as they took off. Using a 1/4000 shutter speed, f14 aperture, ISO 6000, and a fast motor drive, I continually reviewed my shots to capture the demoiselles mid-flight with their wings open. The result is the image you see above - my favourite from that beautiful sunny afternoon.

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