This is the shot that I was waiting for and it took a long time to come!

Many of us struggle with the word patience don't we? We want everything immediately and we are fond of using the other popular abbreviation ASAP!
Well life doesn't work like that and in our rush we regularly frustrate ourselves. Have a look at what I found on my walk in our garden this morning, and the challenge that I set myself to get the shot above.
Come and join me!

To get a shot of the full underside of a man made dragonfly is easy, as it can't fold it's blades!

You see, dragonflies sit on things and it is difficult to get full open shot of their underside if they sit on high in a tree!

Almost got it here, but it came in and sat too fast. The sun is a problem and the drag's speed is another problem!
At this stage I have already taken about 10 shots of it coming to land and taking off with no luck.
But I continued to wait and watch!

This guy (falcon) appeared out of nowhere and flew over as I was aiming my camera at the dragonfly at the top of the tree!

Back to the dragonfly and I continued to try and get the shot that I wanted.

Oh man, I almost had him here and it was so close!

Bang! Finally, at last I got him full on and as I was dancing guess what happened?

Another different dragonfly, a "Yellow Presba" came to sit at the top of a small "Spekboom" bush!

So I took a shot of this one's upper side to show you both the top and the bottom of dragonflies!

And guess what? The falcon also came swooping over again. Due to space constraints in our small garden, I can only get one shot of them before they disappear!

In closing I present you with this late afternoon moon shot!

Yes, I took many shots of the red "Russet Dropwing" dragonfly and it must have taken me about 2 hours to get that open shot, but the result speaks for itself, as I got what I wanted. Now if I had rushed my shots over a short period I would most certainly not only have felt frustrated, but I would also have failed to get the shot that I wanted.
This is how mother nature teaches us her secrets, and patience is one of her main ones.

Oh yes, there are many things that need to be done in a rush, such as emergencies and other life threatening situations, but then again there are also many instances where we acted too fast only to rue the results afterwards.
Moses, a prince in Egypt fled the land because he had killed a man and he became a shepherd in a distant land for 40 years. Then God called him and he led the nation out of Egypt to wander in the desert for another 40 years. After 80 years Moses achieved his objective. Now that was patience!

Now I am not saying that you and I have to wait for a large number of years for anything, but what I am saying is that at times patience is a much better option than spurious actions, and you will also have better results.
It is our own haste that trips us up many times.
Think about it!

Note: I source the dragonfly specie names from my book, "Dragonflies and Damselflies of South Africa"
Authors; Warwick and Michele Tarbotom

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