Large Red Damselflies (Meet Your Neighbours)

I recently posted about the emergence of Large Red Damselflies (including video, see here) and noted that this year I have been lucky enough to observe the emergence of several damselflies. I decided to photograph one emergence sequence in the Meet Your Neighbours style, with the idea of a composite image showing the various stages of the process firmly in my mind.

The final composite image is below:

PLEASE CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE

...and here's a closer look at one of the images

on this occasion I didn't have time to wait around until the damselfly's colours had fully developed (it can take several hours) but here's a different, mature, individual for comparison.

and, again, a closer view

Finally, a view of my rough and ready 'field studio' (if that isn't too grand a term for it)! I'm using white Perspex with a flash positioned behind it and a macro flash attached to the lens. I found the trickiest aspect is keeping the Perspex held vertically but settled on a combination of a Plamp and a couple of bamboo canes which seemed to do the job nicely.

All images were taken handheld using a Canon 60mm macro lens.