It's autumn in many parts of the world now. Though summer is largely present still in Armenia. Still scorching hot days and unforgiving sun. Some signs of the next season are beginning to appear, though it can be hard to tell sometimes as the hot and dry sun can often cause leaves to dry up and wither away. Often showing some resemblance to autumn. There's a strong wind right now, though that's always a frequent occurrence once the sun has set. Thinking about it, I never really saw many bees flying around. Though that could've been from spending most of the time in the central parts of the city. The bees sticking more to the outskirts where there are large gardens and plenty of little plants to collect their pollen from.
I was sitting in the garden just watching for most of the day, as I have been lately with little to do. With this I've spent more time just sitting with the camera nearby, hoping to capture some more of the diverse Armenian wildlife. There are some nightmarish creatures here, ranging from scorpions to preying mantis and even leopards and bears up in the more mountainous regions. Oh, did I forget to mention the Camel Spider? That beautiful monstrosity! Fortunately, the more dangerous things I am yet to witness up close. One scorpion since I arrived in Armenia, and a few snakes, little lizards and one preying mantis. I do want to photograph them more, but perhaps that season has disappeared a little.
Instead I noticed bees roaming around the flowers, or what remained of them. Drying up and starting to crisp. Most of the roses and other flowers have already died off for the season, just a few remain. Still, I hunted around for those more fun insects. A lizard which kept hiding under objects that I couldn't photograph, though I didn't want to disturb it by moving its shelter, so I left it to feel safe in the usual spaces it recognised. The bees were not the ordinary type, those with the larger bodies and fuzzy backsides. These were the more slim variety. The Honey Bee variety, not the Bumble Bee one. I observed it flying around a group of flowers collecting as much pollen as it could, its little back legs covered in a bundle of it. It paid no attention to my presence, despite being relatively close.
I shot these images with the Sony A6000, which isn't the most sharpest and modern sensor but still gets the job done. Especially alongside the 85mm F1.8 lens that's for the full frame models I used. This lens could've benefitted from an ND filter to remove some of that harsher natural light which led to needing to use a higher aperture and shutter speed; though I'm conscious of the ND importance and will be aiming to get one of those in the coming weeks. Some images I opted for manual focus to really ensure the autofocus didn't latch on to anything it shouldn't, especially if I was changing up the aperture from around F1.8 for the shallow look, to something deeper like F5.6. Despite all the technical lingo, the most fun was really just observing nature in its raw form. The bee flying from one flower to another, its calm demeanor, even alongside other bees or moths which would sit performing a similar task.
It made me realise I'd love to do more like this in the future, to dive deeper into the macro world and witness and appreciate its fragility. To realise the universe beneath our feet is something really special, after all. It was particularly fun trying to capture the bee in flight, something that proved a bit more difficult with its movement and capturing the right movement with the shutter speed. Some shots remained out of focus with that focus more being on the flower, but that's fine!
Oh, and here is a shot of that moth. Mostly just sitting around. It didn't move much.