Freezing Bees
Being a little bored on a Saturday isn’t always a bad thing. I always think of photography ideas while I’m sleeping, and this was one of them. I had never done the freezing bees trick before, and I always wanted to try it out. I also wanted to try my new ringlight out. I know I need to get on actually writing a post about my ringlight.
After a nice cup of coffee I got to work. Man I love coffee on Saturday morning. Sitting enjoying a cup of joe in the sun while hanging out with the boys, It doesn’t get much better than that.
So I got a Tupperware dish, one with a lid, and snagged me a bee. After freezing him for a bit he slowed way down. The one I photographed wasn’t the first one. Lets just say I might have froze the first one a little too long. He wouldn’t wake back up. So I snagged anot
her one, and kept a better eye on him. Don’t worry about the first one though, he eventually woke back up.
I’m not a big macro photography shooter, but I felt like branching out a bit. The setup was simple, One ringlight pointed directly at the bee, and my lens not in the ringlight. I sometimes like the way a ringlight looks when it’s not used as directed. After he was froze to the point of being nice and calm I got out a sheet of white printer paper. As he started to wake up I had a hard time getting him to actually stand up. It was kinda weird when he was on his back legs all wiggling and stuff. I’m Definitely a little creeped out by wiggling bugs.
This shot was taken at ISO 200, f/13, 1/80th. The flash was set to max power. Flash is off to camera left. I then took this into photoshop, and added a gradient fill layer to get the kind of coloring that I wanted on the shadow, to add a bit to a rather simple image. Sadly the only lens I have that will get close to macro is a DX lens so I had to use my D80 and not my new D700 that I love so much.
After I got all the shots I wanted I spaced out for a second, and he started flying around the house. After freaking out a little, I grabbed the Tupperware and caught him. Thank god Ashley wasn’t around otherwise there would have been screams and something to the effect of “what the hell are you doing?!?!?”.
I’m still constantly surprised by the fact that it takes so many shots to get just one good one. In the end though I definitely like this shot, and no bees were harmed in the making of this shot.
-Dave
