To Oz and Back

If you have the dubious distinction of being a friend of mine on face/book, then you are well aware of my current infatuation with bees. Originally, it was the flowers that drew my interest, but one can’t very well spend much time among the flowers, without noticing the bees.

When I was a kid, I was terrified of anything that buzzed because I got stung a lot. I have been stung inside my mouth, directly in the arm pit, and up on my inner thigh, when I had the bad luck to have a yellow jacket fly up my short pants. 

The thing is, being petrified of the little varmints upped the price of poker considerably, because they can detect the mood of human beings, and they respond accordingly. If you are traumatized by stinging insects dive-bombing you, they will pick up that vibe. If all their efforts produce nothing more than a yawn, then they will collectively yawn along with you, while they work.

Laughing? More like yawning...

I am so fascinated with bees that I am willing to stand (sit, kneel, squat, bend, stoop, dip or pause) for long periods of time, without ever reflecting on any need for alarm. There are times when a bee will spring out at me from its endeavors, as though having an object a hundred times bigger than it (camera to bee) thrust in its face, left it less than thrilled.

I don’t take it personally.

By way of explanation, though, for my current interest, aside from the obvious connection between bees and my current profession, is that every photo I take, presents me with something different than what meets the eye in real life.

I never know what I am creating until I have moved the digital images over to my computer, and brought them up on the screen. I can then crop, or zero in on only a small portion of the original pic, even if the quality of the photo diminishes as a result.

I know so abysmally little about pixels, and what constitutes the correct number to guarantee clarity, that it’s just guess and by golly most of the time. What ends up happening though, is that in cropping the pic, I get a close-up glimpse of another world.

If I take a hundred photographs of a given flower, I can only see it from so many angles, before they all blend together. That is not the case in the world of bees, because I can take a hundred pics, and none will resemble anything I have ever seen before.

Pollen-laden...

The interior of a flower, blown up thirty or forty times the original, is like a quick visit to Oz, in that I am seeing landscapes unlike any I have ever seen before. Upon these exotic landscapes are mammoth, hairy, pollen-laden, winged chariots, transporting their loads back to the hive, before heading back out for more.

If it seems as though there are more bees this year than in past years, maybe it has something to do with more hollyhocks, zinnias, cosmos, bells of Ireland, statice, daisies, snapdragons, lavender, sage, oregano, cannabis, et al.

So yeah, I get into posting pics of bees like a meditation. If it annoys you, remember I could be one of those individuals who likes to plaster graphic, colored, edited depictions of abuse, anger and frustration. Blackened eyes, frightened kids, emaciated horses, abused dogs, and beached whales.

I could be posting photos of # 45, or one of those other creeps.

Moving right along, if I had to select one critter from the animal kingdom, with which I identified, it might be the bee. Let’s take a tally: I stay busy, I’ve been known to do my share of flying, and I am community-minded to a fault. I hate to spend time by myself.

Just remember that once summer is over, the flow of bee pics will trickle down to nothing, while water in the creek beds will go from a trickle to a roar.

Then I will be back to posting white-water, action photos, until I drop another camera into the drink.