Bee in flight

[Jagman]

I think this is one of the best shots I have taken, but perhaps my enjoyment is coloured by the fact that it took weeks and many hundreds of shots to get this one. I have shown it to others with mixed reactions, it seems to be either love it or don't get it.

Is there something in this photo that can make it not work? Or even better, does it work for you?


http://www.greatsoundingmusic.com/scribbly/beeflight.jpg

[hank1105]

Awesome shot and very hard to get. Works for me :lol:

[Sailor Don]

Nice shot Jagman.

I would 2nd what hank1105 said. Works for me. :D

[im2postal]

Anyone who doesn't see the awesomness of this shot understands little to nothing about photography.

Robbie

[JoseC]

This is a great capture.
It is very difficult to get this result, but the main problem for me is that
we do not see the bee's head nor its wings.
Keep shooting :)
Personnaly I have taken hundred of bees shots and never got one satisfactory when the bee is flying.
Regards
Jose

[Jagman]

Thanks guys :-)

I don't mind the absence of the head so much JoseC, the bee is heading with such intent towards the blurred flower that I feel you don't need to see it's "expression" as such. I would have liked to have the wings in there, and you can see the blur of the left one, but, you can't have everything.


I took this shot about a year ago with a ricoh rdc-7 focused at around 3-4 cm, then I spent weeks standing in front of flowering bushes shoving the camera in next to a bee in flight and pushing the shutter. I did manage to get other creditable shots, but this is by far my favourite.

[Steven M. Anthony]

Implicit in your question of why people do or don't "get" this photo is that there IS something to "get."

Backing up a bit, a photo shared is an intended communication. When you showed this to people you were "saying" something to them. Your observance that some "didn't get the photo" is akin to saying "they didn't understand what I was trying to say with this photo."

Sometimes, this happens because the photog doesn't consciously know what they are trying to say with the photo (I know this is true for me!). Knowing what you want this photo to say (or better still, what you want to say with a photo like this) will help identify what you could have done to make it better--i.e., lead to more people getting it. Also, knowing what you want to say with a particular scene you are about to shoot can lead to compositional decisions (defined broadly to include shutter speed, dof, etc.).

This can be tough because oftentimes the meaning we see in a scene--the reason we are shooting it in the first place--is known to us only at the subconscious level.