It was the Blue Banded Bee that got me on my current journey. My husband and I had only been in our new house in 2009 for a month or two when I noticed a solitary bee hanging around the Salvia outside our back door. It had an unusual hum and try as I might, I couldn’t get a closer look to see what it was. I spent 3 weeks trying to get photos of it and finally succeeded, and therefore identifying what the bee was. A Blue-Banded Bee. I’d never heard of one before, let alone seen one. But I did find out about them and got very excited every time I heard one. It prompted me to try again, and again, to get better shots. I have many now. And once I found I could achieve getting decent shots of this bee, anything else in the garden became my focus too.
I truly believe that I see the world in a different way now – the same way most photographers do, but very few others. Not just through the small viewfinder and ultimately a lens, but also sweeping the area to see what looks different, what’s changed, a sudden movement, a different colour, the flattening of grass, a flower that’s falling apart, the sudden sound of rustling, and so it goes on. It’s these things that have contributed towards my development as a garden and nature photographer.
Leave a Reply