Sometimes I look at the screen of my camera and I cannot believe I managed to get the shot. Sometimes I look and there is nothing. More often than not, there is nothing or it is blurred. Sometimes things happen so fast you cannot look, so you hope and pray that you got the shot.
I went downstairs to my garden to photograph some birds I heard. But then I saw a Carpenter bee (Xylocopa caffra) and I tried my luck. They fly in very distinct patterns, so photographing them is not that hard. They return to a single spot in the air, probably zooming in on a specific flower. But this gives me the opportunity to get that shot!
The old Nikon D300 I have is still working. I think it is on its last legs, but I do not have the money to upgrade now. My laptop is also on its last legs, and with my Ph.D. research being more important, I need to replace the laptop first before I get a new camera.
In any case, please enjoy the series of photographs of this stunning bee that visits my garden every spring and summer!
Carpenter Bee
Postscriptim, or Bee Butt
Bee butts are so cute. Especially on the fuzzy bees. But enough of bee butts, I want to reminisce about slowing down, after reading some posts on slowing down.
The image is a still, still image. Time is slowed down to such an extent that the bee's wings don't move anymore. Captured. Still. Slowed down.
The moment is now forever moving yet still. I can ponder and reflect on the moment. I can slow down.
How many other moments in life do I not want to slow down, capture, and reflect on? A first kiss, the ending of a novel you fell in love with, the feeling of biting into food when you are really hungry, love, and so on. All of these things are fleeting, moving with the speed of light, forever gone. You cannot go back, you can only think about it from the present moment. And with each passing second, the reflection becomes more abstract, ruined by the infinite present.
Alas, we cannot capture every moment with a photograph or a note, some moments are forever lost to the past. And that is life, and that is beautiful. Life is fleeting, we just need to capture every moment we are given by living to the fullest.
All of the photographs are my own, taken with my old Nikon D300 and Tamron 300mm Zoom lens. All of the musings are also my own. I hope you enjoyed this post. Stay safe, and happy photographing!
Bee butts or not, they're sooo cute, snapped suspended in mid-air like that, legs folded downwards (does that help with flying, I wonder...) in that pose.... :) I can imagine them zipping around the flowers and gardens like that...
Maybe it does help, or maybe they have lazy legs when flying! Haha. Anyways, thanks so much I really appreciate it. Sometimes they have fierce dog fights over territory, the males at least. Sometime you see the two bees zooming in weird patters and you know: there is a battle going on!
Incredible shots. Glad those last legs are still standing!
Thanks, my friend! Indeed they are!
Long time, I hope you are well in these crazy times? Stay well!
Long time no see! hahaha I am well and hope that you are too.
Great photos, but I must say I don't like these wood eating bee's!!
They can be immensely intimidating at times! But they are mostly harmless… to humans! Wood, not so much.
And here I was thinking I was the poetic one. It is always refreshing to see or read someone else getting lost in the happy moments we capture or have shrouding our reflections of past times.
If we forget to live in the now, the memories we so badly replay in our heads as beautiful as they are inhibit us from trying to replace them yet we crave to prolong their familiarity as the infinite present scares the hell out of it.
We are so fragile it humbles me.
Beautiful shots 💚
Thank you so much for your kind words. I merely took inspiration from your post and musings.
Sometimes you just want to get drenched in the past as the present is this weird mixture of to come and what has been, a really uncanny feeling to be honest. I think that is why so many artists live in the past, or at least that how I see it.
And yes, we are so fragile. I study philosophy in the space of counselling, and it’s for me this double edged sword: some people need to be complacent and ignorant as the “truth” (whatever it might be) will scare them and break the fragile whole they were. Some people need that fragile veil broken so that they can see clearly.
You are so right, we are fragile o so fragile.
Thank you for musing along!
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