Technique: It was a cool day (18C) with partly cloudy skies and intermittent light showers -perfect weather to go looking for solitary bees since they'll have a tough time keeping their metabolism up. I got lucky and found this Mason bee (Male of Megachile (Chalicodoma) parietina.) semi-dormant in my Lavender. A few times it "woke up" and as it changed positions I looked for new compositions, and these are just my first three favorites out of what will be several sets.
Tech Specs: Canon 80D (F11, 1/250, ISO 100) + a Canon MP-E 65mm macro lens (around 2x to 3x) + a diffused MT-24EX (both flash heads on the Canon flash mount, E-TTL metering). These are single, uncropped, frames taken hand held. I used an artificial flower to keep the background from being black.








