Eye-to-eye

This white-legged damselfly posed one May evening for more than an hour on symmetrically crossed grasses. It seemed as transfixed by the photographer as he was by it. ‘After a couple of photos from a distance,’ says Theo, ‘I crept closer and closer, trying not to make any unexpected movements. An hour or so and many shots later, I was really close. But it still maintained eye contact while I fired off shot after shot.’ The resulting detail reveals not only its beautiful colours but also its spiked hair and ‘goatee’ beard, together with its armoury of sensory leg bristles.