Sunday 23 June 2013

Day 174 : b-day

Curiously less than an hour ago I was enjoying AL’s glorious celebratory birthday barbecue feast alongside the pool in the rose garden, and had been discussing macro photography with KR. We’d been pondering the challenge of capturing a bee shot as they don't generally linger long and there's the jeopardy of getting stung if you get too close.

Not so long afterwards I was meandering my way home, feeling the urge to walk off some of the Lacey’s Pieces, armed with my camera and I stumbled across some bees.

This bush, smothered in tiny pink flowers was attracting a small troupe of busy bees, loitering briefly on each flower before buzzing to the next. With my close-up filters attached, I have to get extraordinary close and trying to focus on these frenetic bees was a real challenge. As soon as I think I've got a good, sharp shot I click and the image revealed is either entirely devoid of bee or has a fuzzy yellow and black stripy blur to one side. But I keep trying, narrowly avoiding being very stung, channeling Winnie the Pooh’s advice regarding interacting with bees. Though he was trying to steal their honey and I just wanted to capture their image for posterity. Though I'm not entirely positive bees can be distracted, Pooh suggested humming a song about being a cloud but I opt to try not to look like a flower (though to be fair, I'm wearing a dress covered in large B&W photographs of flowers topped off with another huge grey flower) so possibly failing on that point.

However, I just about managed to get my bee shot and remain blissfully unstung, happy days!

 

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