The Bee and Me

It happened one morning last spring. I got up early and headed down to Point Defiance to catch the good light at the boat house. I remember it being overcast that morning. The sky was plain and boring and no good for landscapes. After taking a few uninspiring shots of the boat house, I remembered there being some beautiful Foxglove over behind one of the old trains at the Logging Museum just across the park. Now one thing I've learned since picking up photography is the simple fact that in nature, what happens once is likely to happen again, in the same way and pretty much at the same time tomorrow, next week or next year. Whether it is a flock of geese arriving by the hundreds to a reserve or just the changing of the seasons, it is that predictable pattern of nature that allows photographers to anticipate great shots. I had shot those same Foxgloves the year before and knew they would be there again so I decided to scrap the boat house shoot and head over to the museum.

When I arrived at the logging museum, I headed directly over to the patch of Foxglove, hidden away behind an old worn out rusty train car once used to haul the huge logs produced by the old logging equipment. It's all extremely interesting historical stuff that is great to photograph but I was there for the Foxglove. And so were the bumble bees apparently. There must have been at least twenty really big bumble bees just a hanging out at the local Foxglove. Normally I would be too afraid of these bees to get in close but not with a camera in my hand. As with so many other things in nature, if you don't provoke or show fear, these insects are more than content to just go about their pollen collecting business without paying too much attention.

I've mentioned in a previous post(Taking a Closer Look) that I absolutely love chasing bees around the flowers. In fact the picture used in that post comes from this very shoot (left). Instead of shooting just flowers, the bees quickly became an unexpected but welcome secondary subject. The light was really right as I started to shoot. The bees were very busy though, never staying in one place for more than a second. It was quickly becoming a challenge to frame the bee on the flower, get a good focus and fire the shutter, before the bee would fly away to the next flower. This is often where the "chasing" part comes into play. Sometimes it's better to concentrate on composing the picture perfectly and then wait for the bee to show up. And this day, with the bees being so fickle I figured that might be the way to go.

One of the dangers of framing the shot and playing the waiting game though, is you run the risk of paying too much attention to just that one shot, missing out on all of the other great stuff happening around you. Realizing this I shifted my focus quickly to the surrounding flowers. To my surprise I noticed a bee had landed on a nearby flower and was actually sitting still. Determined not to miss the opportunity, I quickly removed my camera from the tripod, fired up the image stabilization and started shooting this one bee hand held.

At fist I was careful, keeping my distance so as not to scare the little guy away and miss the moment. I was ecstatic! I was actually getting a bee to stand still, just sitting there posing for my every photographic whim. As my excitement grew, I started to push the envelope, getting closer and closer firing the shutter quickly. Like a shark feeding on flesh, I began to shoot in frenzy, moving side to side, changing angles, moving up, moving down. I couldn’t believe my luck! The closer I got, the better my shots, it was just amazing!

And then I stopped. Wait a minute… something’s not right.

In all of the excitement I failed to make the realization that this beautiful creature was not just sitting on the flower posing ever so graciously but was in reality struggling desperately to hang on. In all of the excitement I failed to see that this bee was possibly dieing.

At that moment everything changed. I froze. Al l the excitement that only seconds ago was filling my soul to the brim quickly disappeared. I stood there silently, just watching. How clearly it had become. It was like the old lady’s picture where you don’t see her until you realize she’s there and then you can see nothing else. I started to feel almost guilty. I was selfishly deriving such pleasure from this bee as he was perhaps in the last moments of his life. I tried for a moment to pretend that it didn’t matter but it did. It’s such a strange thing. It’s a bee; there are millions of them, why would I care if this one bee was dieing? But I did care. And I did feel guilty…guilty enough to leave that patch of flowers behind and go home without taking another single photograph.

Ever since that day last spring, I've been a little haunted by what I experienced. I think I would feel the same if given the task of photographing a funeral. There is just something that feels fundamentally wrong about photographing death. Of course, these days, with all of the death we constantly see on television, capturing all of the gory details in high definition has become quite en vogue. However, to me and probably most other regular folk, death is still something we try to keep hidden away. I hope that bee flew away, just after I left, living out the rest of his days in pollen collecting bliss. Something tells me he didn't, but hey...I can hope.