Bees and Lavender

One of the benefits of digital photography is how it frees me to take as many pictures as I want to, without concern for spending money to get prints of many mediocre photos in the quest for the really good one.

A couple years ago, I was taking picture of the wild sunflowers that I had grown from seeds my sister had sent me from Nebraska, where they grow along the roads and highways. There were bees flying around — large, round, black ones that are pretty mild-tempered. I was working from a low angle, trying to use the bright blue sky as a backdrop.

It wasn't until I was reviewing the photos on my computer that I saw this.

I loved the fortuitous capture of the bee staring straight at the camera.

Yesterday, I took a number of photos of the bees in the lavender. None of them are quite as fun an quirky as the sunflower photo, but with the Close-up setting on the camera, I got a decent picture of a bee and some interesting effects with the focus.

This one is a little different in that the flowers in the foreground are out of focus. Usually, it's the background that's fuzzy.

I like the way the flower in the foreground here is backlit. It gives the flower a bit of a posterized effect.