Butterfly effect

Learn how to shoot beautiful butterfly art. Ben Brain reveals how

It’s easy to see why photographers and artists are seduced by the beauty of butterflies. Their intricate designs, bold shapes and wonderful range of colours make them simply irresistible.

While it’s great to capture butterflies in their natural habitat, they also look beautiful out of context in a more graphic or even anatomical presentation, and that’s what we’re exploring in this month’s Creative Zone. It’s important to find a decent source of dried specimens to work with, so we used samples from the Lepidoptera Breeders Association UK ( with the assurance that they’ve been sustainably farmed. It’s a good idea to get them already pinned open.

The photography is relatively simple, especially as the dried specimens won’t fly away. Simply create a basic table-top studio with a tripod and a ring flash and shoot the specimens against a crisp white background such as a sheet of white card.

In post-production it’s just a case of extracting the butterflies from the white background and repositioning them into a new image with a tinted background that complements the subject.

Use a ringflash or natural window light to illuminate your subject evenly