I think this is one of your best dragonfly pics Andrea, it is superb in my opinion.

Who cares about the cluttered background.What is important that you did manage to get a perfect capture of this specie of Dragonfly. This is perfect for me Andrea. An instant favorite. Amazing capture. God bless.

First, I've known a number of large, middle-aged men who could be called broad-bodied chasers. They rarely catch anyone. Second, looking at your other image on Flickr, I accidently triggered the slide show of your collection and sat there for ten minutes just mesmerized. Some of these I do not remember seeing. I think you are holding out on us. Not a bad pic in the bunch. I really think you should have a book in the stores. You could call it Andrea's World. I think it would sell. You could give the proceeds to charity if you like. Now, as for this image, I agree with jayfar. Superb, stunning, superlative, splendid. Such beautiful and sharp detail on the wings. The creature stands out quite well from the background.

Stunning macro. Bravo.

Splendid capture, Andrea! :)

Stunning shot, superb details, especially on the wings.

what a descriptive name for this sleek beauty

Sterling clarity with the dragonfly, particularly in the wings, plus a fine composition overall. Actually, your Tizzy did quite well in re the background considering it's a point-and-shoot. My point-and-shoot does poorly in that regard.

Beautifully captured, Andrea; the background works well for me, the colours of the flowers give an excellent representation of the life of this jumbo-jet flyer!

Wow great up close capture hugs susan

I like both versions but the FlickR version seemed to zoom clearer but the RR version zoomed larger.

Stunning is just the beginning of the description of this shot. I think the background works quite well

Nice shot! He looks to have been eating well.

very good micro

wysiwyg has a point there. I agree with him. And this is a wonderful shot, Andrea.

beautiful capture

Catch em when u can lol tha'ts what i do other wise u lose the shot great one here.

Superb pic.

Brilliant capture, Andrea ! this is the first time, I've ever seen one of those 'phat' ones ;)) love the transparency of the wings, just like curtains ... or leadlight church windows, BB

I think the background adds to the pic, love these beautiful lace wings!!

Wonderful close-up!

Uh huh. Just because your camera is a point-and-shoot doesn't mean that's the sort of photography you do! :P

Nice critter. It looks a lot like our male Common Whitetail (Libellula luctuosa). The female Common Whitetails do not have a white tail and their wing markings are different from the males also. I am curious as to whether or not the same is true for this Broad-bodied cousin. Nothing wrong with point and shoot techniques when you get this kind of result. I agree with your assessment of a cluttered image here but you take what you can when photographing wildlife. These types of images are difficult enough to get without becoming obsessed with the backgrounds. I am no expert but wide aperture settings will usually result in shallow depth of field so a lot of background clutter becomes pleasing 'bokeh'. Of course wide apertures also means more light reaching the sensor so blown out whites become more of a problem. P&S cameras in macro mode seem to produce very nice bokeh in general. Photography is full of challenges when trying to capture nature but very rewarding for those instances when things work out. Lee