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Butterfly Pictures

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A Giant Swallowtail butterfly, with its distinctive yellow-and-black wing pattern, feeding on a vivid red Mexican sunflower against a soft blue-green background. Photograph by John Corney.
Giant Swallowtail butterfly on a Mexican sunflower. © John Corney

Are you on the hunt for beautiful butterfly pictures? If so, take a look at my portfolio of butterfly photographs, available as prints on archival paper or canvas. Most sizes can be framed, with an extensive selection of frames and mats to choose from.

Self-Propelled Flowers

There's a line I love from Robert A. Heinlein's 1985 novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls. One of his characters, Captain John Sterling, offers this:

"Butterflies are not insects. They are self-propelled flowers."

Self-propelled flowers. It's such a perfect description — it captures both the colour and the delicate, drifting unpredictability of the way a butterfly moves through a garden. The giant swallowtail in the photograph above is a fine example. It's the largest butterfly in North America, with a wingspan that can reach six inches, and despite its size it moves with the same unhurried grace as its smaller cousins. I photographed this one feeding on a Mexican sunflower in my backyard — the two of them together making a kind of accidental still life of red, yellow, and green.

Bring a Little Summer Indoors

If you're like me and believe these "self-propelled flowers" bring a bit of joy to the soul, consider a framed butterfly print for your home or office. They suit living rooms, bedrooms, and workspaces alike, bringing colour and a focal point of interest to a wall — a small piece of summer that lasts all year.

👉 Browse my butterfly prints on Redbubble

View all my work on Redbubble by searching @kornkobart.

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