bee li(n)es...

The thought of observing bees prowling about their pollen fields had never occurred to me, until one day this summer. Yes, I've taken snapshots of bees before, but this was different. This bee and its comrades actually remained calm in my presence. I had time to observe, and pay attention to detail through the lens. This side glance at a long-faced Bavarian drone was one of my first bee pictures that day. And, after taking hundreds of bee pics within a few days, it remains my favorite.

I have no idea "how" a bee sees. I just know it had to have seen me, and decided not to fly away (or at least did not react by fleeing). I was able to encroach within three inches of its stare, yet did not feel like I was trespassing. Perhaps it was satiated, perhaps it was curious. The bee was able to discern, or at least to categorize me and/or my presence as a non-threat. I like to think that it just didn't care.  Photographing, or "making a picture," is after all an act of appropriation. As Susan Sontag once remarked in her work On Photography, "There is an aggression implicit in every use of the camera."  I'm delighted that this bee was unaware of Sontag's pronouncement.