Perfect Poise

One of our favourite reserves for a walk when we lived in Southampton was Winal Moors on the very edge of Winchester.  Not only could you get great views (almost guaranteed on every visit) of water voles but there was a whole host of other wildlife.  It was there that this photograph of a banded demoiselle was taken.

I was attracted to the metallic blue of these and thought that it would work well against the green of a leaf, so when one sat on a leaf just in front of us I wasted no time in snapping this shot:

This was taken on my old EOS450D at f8, 1/200th of a second ISO400 using my 70-300mm Tamron f5.6-6.3 Macro lens at 300mm.  In post processing I have removed a couple of white blemishes from the leaf under the insect and behind it, however I was unable to accurately remove the bits of fluff on it and behind it's leg.  The image has also been cropped to come closer to the rule of thirds and remove an annoying leaf on the front right.

If I were to do this shot again I would re-position myself slightly to give more room to the top right for the insect to look into.