One Bee or Not Two Bee(s)

Why? Why do I jump into things without thinking them through?  I’m going to blame my Bohemian blood unless someone can prove otherwise.

The local county fair is, disturbingly, only a few weeks away.  For those who choose to enter flowers, for example, it is going to be tough year.  My garden calla lilies are about an inch high at the moment…hardly enough progress to submit a full-fledged calla blossom or two in the near future.

I decided to try something different this year and sent off my entry stating I would submit a photograph of an insect.  Talk about commitment!  I don’t own a macro lens, but what the heck; it’s all about the learning right? RRRRRRRight.

Pawing through my photographic images I found one of a bee on a purple coneflower.  It looked good—really good—on the itsy-bitsy screen, so I had it enlarged to an 8 x 10.  Ewww. Not good! Not good!  Five dollars wasted, and “Plan Bee” was needed.

I grabbed my camera and headed to the backyard.  It was a semi-sunny day and insects were buzzing past me like little jet planes with defunct GPS units.  They appeared to be on a drunken binge.

With no grace at all, chubby bumblebees plopped onto blossoms hardy enough to survive our non-spring.  Soon, covered in yellow and orange pollen, they’d fly off in a wobbly sort of way and land on the next available flower.  This was great fun to watch… unless you wanted to snap a picture.  Time after time I’d press the shutter release and get nothing but a blurry bee’s butt.  That might have value if I were shooting for Playbee magazine, but this was supposed to be serious art, darn it!

After the sunburn set in I wondered if this is how big game hunter’s feel.  I stalked, I thought words I’d never say, I waited.  Press shutter. Look at screen. Delete. Press shutter. Look at screen. Delete.  Delete. Delete.

Thank heavens for digital cameras!  After 150 bee shots I have one or two that are decent.  I haven’t tried enlarging them yet, which will bee the final test.  Plan C may bee in the works.  Chasing bees with my camera?  Beelieve me, it was the bee-st part of my day.