Canon 30D, handheld [Top] Mamiya 80mm at f4 1/800 second at ISO 320 [Bottom] Mamiya 80mm at f16 Sunpak Auto 322 flash with custom softbox 1/200 second at ISO 250

So green

I have a preference for green treefrogs (Hyla cinerea) and it's mostly because of their wonderful color. For a long time, I had encountered very few, but with moving to a new location I found a pond about two kilometers away, and it had a nice thicket of pickerelweed plants (Pontederia cordata) growing on one side. As can be seen here, the color of the leaves and the color of the frogs is almost a perfect match, which is the whole point of having camouflage colors.

For this session, I was sans flash unit (it was unplanned, just a quick check on my way past, but yeah, of course I had my camera,) so I had to work with natural light, which was a bit dim that day. I had found this one through its silhouette, sitting as it was on the opposite side of the broad leaf from me, and it took a little maneuvering in the mud and thicket of weeds to actually make eye contact with the frog, so I took advantage of the peculiar perspective along the edge of the leaf and the short depth of field that resulted from the large aperture, itself necessary because of the light. The result was nicely surrealistic.

At home, I'd been finding plenty of grey treefrogs but no green ones, and was hoping to get some established. Adding in a small pond did the trick, even before I managed to raise any ideal plants for them – you know, in complementary colors. With a great eye for the colors, a few of them began hanging out on the American pokeweed plants (Phytolacca americana) that I allowed to grow wild in the backyard because they were good at attracting photo subjects. Those hues were a good match too, and this time I was using the flash. The pose, by the way, is very typical.