Working Class Hero — 100mm | f/4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/1250
Dutiful honey bee plying her trade. Drinking her nectar and loading her pollen basket, she works with intent. With energy and purpose she minds her craft. Even alone the hive is on the mind. Her community needs her; needs her singular focus to feed and to provide. To sustain the group. Bounding atop pistils by day, she works the land spending hours at the harvest. Undaunted she holds fast to her task. Mindfulness dams distraction. Even the focused lens of the observer matter little to our indefatigable worker bee. She need not pay us any mind—she strives for the hive.
As ever, thank you, John Lennon, for enriching our lives with joy. Thanks for your classic song connecting to this lyrically inspired photo. A working class hero is something to be(e).
The Technician — 100mm | f/4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/160
Photo making is a task I invest significant time. 2020 marks year nine in my photography journey, and what an unexpected trip it has been. Beginning as a desperate distraction from depression, it has morphed into a real passion spanning the better part of a decade. I look back and ask myself what has changed since such a somber beginning? How has my perception shifted since my early days as a lost soon-to-be 30 year old with little clue how to use a camera?
For years I thought of myself as a technician. An individual proficient in making appealing photographs. Something of a process driven camera operator churning out landscape and nature photos per the rules. Viewing myself as a proper photographer, let alone creator, took many years of inner wrangling. I was a guy who followed procedure and protocols to produce a good clean image. There was nothing more to it. Follow steps one, two, and three, and a good photo you will be. As ever labels and semantics tripped me up, and I refused to think of myself as something more than a well trained individual who executes a task list. Anyone can do this, and creativity is no factor.
This view, pedantic and self-limiting, was a silly exercise. Over time I eased up on these pointless restrictions. Why put myself in a box? Or the better question, why exclude myself from other boxes? It’s foolish. After several years I grew inured to the photographer label. Being called a photographer didn’t leave me vexed and uncomfortable, with a furrowed brow looking over my shoulder for someone else with a camera . We must accept what is.
Fast forward to the past few years, and I finding growing comfort traipsing into creator territory. Might I be creative? That’s all cool and artsy sounding, so can it be true of a self-professed technician? Here I submit my writing as evidence. Even though my clear renown, such as it is, is as a photographer, it is my writing that brings the most intrinsic joy. This creative act is far less natural to me than making photographs. There is no technical process for me to follow. No clear roadmap for success. This is a wholly feel-based enterprise, and I am certain that leaves learned readers with a proper taste for grammar cringing.
English class was not my thing as a youngster, and this remained the case throughout high school and college. I showed neither promise nor interest in writing. And yet, for the past few years, it is far and away my favorite form of personal creative expression. The words I write to accompany each photograph I share means more to me than any photo I make. Do not get me wrong, it feels great to have a photo meet with broad community appeal. Those likes, shares, and thumbs up feel good! But nothing pleases me more than a person talking about what I wrote. This praise removed the technician from the uncomfortable box he placed himself in. So allow me a giant thank you to every one of you who takes time to read and resonate with my words. Your time and attention is a gift amidst this tripped up world, and I thank you all.
Honey bees! Working, buzzing, collecting. Pollen clinging and clumping in large, impressive blobs stuck about their legs. Dutiful, the bees worked over one flower head after another, nonstop in their quest for pollen. They did not seem to mind my presence much, either. Showing no ill will toward my camera intrusion. Though getting tack sharp focus was not the easiest considering they never slow nor settle.
But seriously, I cannot believe I have honey bees. There must have been dozens milling about the flowers strewn about my property. I never remember seeing this many honey bees in an entire season, let alone on a single day, and I have been photographic my yard extensively since 2012. My little black and yellow buds were doing their best work on my other little black and yellow buds, my Black-eyed Susan blossoms. It was awesome to watch.
