Johan van der Wielen ~ Nature Photography

Since last year, I have been working on a photo and film project in my own garden, specifically focusing on life in our large natural pond. Last week, it was time for the emergence of the emperor dragonflies (Anax imperator). One of the combination photos I had planned is more documentary in nature, to show the different phases of metamorphosis. In 16 steps, you see the transformation from larva to dragonfly. In reality, the entire process took just under 6 hours. The time between each step (photo) is not the same; there is only a minute between some photos, while other stages took more than half an hour to occur. In these 16 steps, you can see the spectacular metamorphosis beautifully.