Henrik Sp ranz

Henrik Spranz shares how he took this magical butterf ly shot

The nature photographer shares how he achieves his fairytale style

Since starting to shoot macro photography years ago, I’ve seen more sunrises than I had in

my whole life before. That’s because early in the morning, when it’s cold, insects are slow and lethargic, so they’re less likely to fly away or move too much when you photograph them.

Getting up long before sunrise has its downsides – but when it comes to macro photography, it opens up opportunities. I like to find insects sitting on their favourite plants, and use their torpid state to shoot from a tripod, focus manually and even wait for the perfect light conditions.

To achieve a dreamy effect, you can either try to shoot with backlighting or turn around to shoot with the sun behind, using a diffuser to get some nice colours. Most of the time, I expose to the right to increase that dreamy impression.

Macro photography bears many sources of excitement and possibilities when it comes to creativity. I enjoy showing this small world of wonders in a beautiful and positive way. I use pastel colours and include the habitat in a more or less abstract way through early morning light, mostly with a wide open aperture and by putting some good vibes in it; it’s not all about technique.

To find butterflies and insects in the early morning, it helps to gain knowledge about them and their behaviour. A good place to start are unfertilised, dry meadows. Visit the location in the evening to see which species are flying around, and where they go to sit before sunset. Then return there very early in the morning – but as always, watch your steps so you don’t do any damage to the insects or their habitats.

I developed this fairytale macro style with the woman in my life, Perdita Petzl, over time. It didn’t start with a plan: it just evolved as we followed our need to show nature in a dreamy and beautiful way. Our work got described as fairytale-like by many people and even the press, so the project was born.

We recently had our first exhibition of our work, where many people were surprised that the magic isn’t done in post-processing. Several visitors even stated they were emotionally touched by our photos!

For this shot, I chose a very low point of view to make the wings look more impressive and to increase the impact of the scene – pointing the camera upwards to emphasise a butterfly about to start its first flight into a new day. To get such a low point of view I used a Berlebach mini tripod, a Sirui ball head, an L-shaped quick release plate, and a few more accessories.

I manually focused using Live View, with camera settings of 1/80 sec at f/5, ISO 320 and 180mm, and took the shot with a cable release. I closed the aperture a little to extend the depth of field for the wings; the fast shutter speed froze movements from the wind, avoiding blur.