An old monarch

It's been a week for long-lived Monarchs.  On Wednesday, Queen Elizabeth II became the longest reigning British Monarch. Also on Wednesday, only nine days into the official start of spring, I came across this beauty sunbathing amongst the blossoms.

Monarch butterflies usually live for only two to three months and it's far too early for this one to be from this year's crop.  Most likely it's an over-winterer - a late autumn butterfly that has hung out in a cluster waiting for spring. Because their metabolism slows in the cold winter months, they live for much longer than the summer butterflies, waking ready to mate and lay their eggs. It must be a good day for old Monarchs.

Blocked |||

Sometimes I don't want to pick up the camera. It's not that I have 'gone off' photography (not after sixty years!) but inspiration fails me - I can't think of how to move forward. I could just keep taking the same old pictures as yesterday, but I want to grow to progress, and some days I just don't know how. On days like that I fire up Apothysis and make fractals.

I find that there's something therapeutic about fiddling with fractals and, when an image starts to appear on the screen, it's a bit like watching a photographic print emerge in a tray of developer. Yesterday was a fractal day and I developed this picture of a butterfly ...