The Bee's Knees

Here's an up close look at a Bachelor's Button with a busy little bee, taken with my macro filter and 50mm lens set to f/1.8.  I did crop a bit off the top... I did an awful job framing it because the tiniest movement makes a huge difference and my face was maybe 6 inches from the bee. All the bees were so busy, and they couldn't have cared less about me, but still I felt tense. When I try a closeup like this in the future, I need to remember to use a higher f-stop. It would have been nice to get the whole bee in focus, not just his knees.

Busy Bee

An industrious little honey bee caught midflight as he pollinates bachelor's buttons (Centaurea cyanus) at Catherine Creek earlier this week.  It's a good metaphor for my month, so busy... I see I haven't posted since May 22nd!  But things are finally settling down again after a family visit, tons of yard work, a short but nasty spring cold, and a long overdue update to my website. It's not flashy, but I've done all the design and update myself so I'm proud of it.  As for the wildflower and honeybee image, it's one of several that I will share from my trip to Catherine Creek last week.  I made the visit on my way to pick up the 2018 calendars in Hood River.  Very exciting!  I'll get a new Amazon link for the calendars up this week. And in the meantime, I hope to get a little busier with the photography and blogging, and get caught up on all the blogs I'm following. 

Whack-A-Bee

Friends of West Davis Pond has done such a nice job putting together a bee and butterfly garden just full of things blooming right now.  This bushy flowering plant was very popular with the bees.  Bees are so hard to photograph; they just move so fast!  I felt like I was playing a game a Whack-A-Mole, with my camera firing just after the bee departed the viewfinder, over and over again.  Luckily I had a few strikes too.  I thought this one was so funny.  For such a speedy little critter, he sure does have an awkward loafing sort of posture!  Cartoonish.

May 16

I went back to the field of blue camas flowers at Delphi School today. This shot is really more about the bee than the flowers though. I had my ISO set to 400 from earlier in the day and forgot about that, so I ended up with a super fast shot (1/1000 sec) which really froze the bee in action. I wish it was in a prettier patch of flowers, but it does show how quickly the flowers are fading. In fact I doubt I'll go back to photograph there again; I think the flowers will be gone in a day or two. Of the three shots I did at this location my favorite is the May 15th wide view shot with the dewy flowers and schoolhouse in the background. I tried that shot again today with the afternoon sun behind me but it didn't have the same depth. f/5.6 at 1/1000, 200mm, ISO400.