Butterfly Safari with Andrew Fusek Peters
A year among the butterflies – Andrew Fusek Peters’s remarkable new photographic book celebrates one of the UK’s best-loved species
A highly successful author with over 100 books published during his career, Andrew Fusek Peters’s change of direction to photography over the past six years has been no less productive. Over 300 of his photographs have appeared in the national press in this time, including two appearances on the cover ofThe Times, as well as garnering praise in numerous prestigious competitions. Beginning in 2018,Andrew took on the new challenge of capturing the mesmerising sight of butterflies in flight, travelling throughout the UK and spending endless hours on the search for elusive species. With many seeing catastrophic decline since the mid-1970s, their proper appreciation and care is more urgent now than ever.
Andrew’s patience and perseverance have resulted in a collection of photography of a quality rarely seen before, with his innovative techniques preserving their flight sequences for the page. As Andrew describes, ‘Capturing butterflies in flight is a challenging process and I have spent years now studying butterfly behaviour and trying to anticipate how they will take off when nectaring and in which direction they will go. As their flight is what they are named after, it has felt like a long, tiring, but ultimately noble pursuit to explore their mid-air grace.’
Andrew’s patience and perseverance have resulted in a collection of photography of a quality rarely seen before, with his innovative techniques preserving their flight sequences for the page. As Andrew describes, ‘Capturing butterflies in flight is a challenging process and I have spent years now studying butterfly behaviour and trying to anticipate how they will take off when nectaring and in which direction they will go. As their flight is what they are named after, it has felt like a long, tiring, but ultimately noble pursuit to explore their mid-air grace.’
On the technical process behind the photographs,Andrew states: ‘At between 60 and 120 frames per second in raw, this speed is fast enough, on the rare times I get a set in focus, to reveal the butterfly’s flight across the frame. I can then layer up some of these frames to show movement through space and time in a single final shot.’
As the journey continued and his knowledge and experience grew, Andrew sought to get even closer to his subject, his macro-level images enabling incredibly detailed close-ups of features such as the eyes and wings and revealing ‘worlds within worlds ’as millions of tiny scales become visible.
From early spring butterflies, such as the OrangeTip, and overwintering and hibernating butterflies like the Peacock, through the year to the last, late butterflies – the blues and skippers – each graces the page alongside Andrew’s impassioned and informative writing, detailing the story behind each image and the conservation efforts needed to maintain each butterfly for the future. This is a timely combination of words and pictures which highlights so much of the natural beauty on our doorsteps that we might stand to lose.
Publishing 14 March 2023. Pre-order now for exclusive pre-publication copy - free postcard included.