Lamb's Ears Are A'buzzin'
It seems just yesterday my Lamb's Ears were only inches high. Then the flower spikes began to grow. Now the small flowers are in full bloom and the bees love them. You can see one foraging bee in the bottom left in the photo below. You may also spot a couple of blurry ones. Bees don't stay still very long. And if one is still, several others are in the air or about to be.
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| Bee on Lamb's Ears, © B. Radisavljevic |
If you've ever tried to photograph bees, you know they like to move to a different flower as soon as you get them in focus. When my herbs are in bloom, each seems like an airport. I decided to make a brief video to capture a few seconds of the bees moving around on this clump of Lamb's Ears . You can see how fast they are and how quickly they move from flower to flower. Unfortunately they also insisted on flying into the shadow and out.
Playing with a Bee Photo
I did manage to get one bee to stay still and visible for long enough to get a decent shot. I played around with a focus effect to blur the background and make the bee easy to see. Bees not only move all the time, but they also hide. Sometimes all you will see is the head or the stinger end.
Another reason I used the focus effect was to blur the rhubarb chard plant that was bolting. I liked its colors, but it was looking the worse for wear and it would have been a distraction. Leaving all the details in the chard would also have made the text on this photo harder to see.
Have You Ever Hunted Bees with a Camera?
Praying Mantis Pair Mating Cover For The iPad Mini
Some insects are fairly easy to photograph, but not the bee. Ladybugs are pretty cooperative. So is the praying mantis. They don't exactly pose, but neither do they keep moving most of the time. Here are some of the photos I got of them and put on Zazzle products.
You will notice that they are all on herbs. The Praying Mantis is on mullein. The ladybug is on borage. And I did capture that one bee on the Spanish lavender for my jigsaw puzzle.
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Which insect do you think is easiest to photograph?
