I saw this damsel fly flitting around amongst the lavender flowers, but from most angles the scene was simply too busy with the insect lost among the flowers.
Most of the time when it came to rest, it held its wings close to its abdomen, which limited the amount of detail visible.
I think I spent about 20 minutes watching before I managed to get lucky and capture this image by getting down low and focusing on the flower.
The image is cropped as the Pentax A 50 f 1.7 is not a true macro lens, although it is extremely sharp, and does focus reasonably close for a non-macro lens.
I was under an overhanging tree, hence the dark area at the top of the image, which I think adds interest as a sort of natural framing of the subject compared to simply having a stark blue sky.
Although working with an older manual focus lens for this kind of subject was a bit of a challenge, I feel the lens performed way out of proportion to its cost, and I'm happy to present this as my best of 2014.