“Golden Moments”
“Do you know how there are moments when the world moves so slowly you can feel your bones shifting, your mind tumbling? When you think that no matter what happens to you for the rest of your life, you will remember every last detail of that one minute forever?”
― Jodi Picoult
While on an extended hike yesterday, making photos for my next series, I entered a large meadow, filled with bright yellow Goldenrod. The plants were in peak condition, having just started blooming a few days ago. The entire field in which I stood, from treeline to treeline, was alight with gold. As I stood looking across the expanse of flowers, my ears became aware of an incredible buzzing sound. Upon looking closer, I noticed thousands of honeybees at work, extracting nectar and collecting pollen. I was literally engulfed in a sea of flowers and bees. Wow!
For a few moments, I stood there, eyes closed, the sun shining warmly on my face, savouring the moment, thrilling in the warmth and listening to the thrum of the bees. Everything else melted into the background as my senses drank in the sounds of life. I was blessed to be part of this moment, also thinking how awesome it was to see a significant population of honeybees, which have been on the decline for the past few years.
After pausing to enjoy this experience, I set out to make a few images to remember it by. It did not take long, as every flower has at least two bees on it. That is how many there were. As I said in previous posts, I used to have a fear of bees. What I have experienced lately is that honeybees are very gentle and could care less about me as I lean in close for a photo. I also noticed that as I pushed though the bee laden goldenrod, they simply flew into the air and landed back on the plants after I had passed. They bounced off my arms and chest as I waded through the flowers, simply another participant in the life of the meadow. By the way, for those not familiar with goldenrod, it grows on tall stalks and the flowers are at face level to me. I’m six foot one. So, the bees are right in front of me as well.
So, here it is, a “Golden Moment” to remind me of my time with the bees and the joy of that moment, in the flowers.
Nikon D800
Tamron SP AF 90mm f/2.8 Di Macro 1:1 (272ENII)@90mm
1/640 sec, f/13.0, ISO 400
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Ed Lehming Photography 
Reblogged this on Blog Pad 2017.
That was beautiful.. I kind of feel as though I was in the same field from you description. Happy blogging..🙋🐦
Thank you. It was an incredible experience and I was glad that I was able to bring that feeling forward. Too often words fall short.
Fabulous. I have some goldenrod in the garden, but never seen it in a meadow. Beautiful image.
Hi Ed,-
We just installed a program deleting any profiles not showing activity within the last 3 months, but you have visited us a number of times! And we still can’t find your profile listed as a ‘follower’ of ours? It just might be that an error has been made somewhere along the line, but if you want our alerts to newly published pictures, you need to re-enlist at our front page. (Sorry to trouble you!) Love to have you with us!
Hi,
Just as you have been careful to ‘cull’ followers who are not fully engaged, I limit the sites that I follow. I’m careful not to overload my feed so I too can fully engage with the sites I subscribe too. If content is relevant to me and if consistent quality, I follow. Others, like yours, may eventually end up on my list. Looking forward to future posts.
Of course! Entirely your decision! Since you’ve visited us pretty often I was only afraid there had been errors made.l ‘By choice’ is quite OK by me!
Since start we have published more than 6 700 ‘full screen pictures’ and given health and the years needed I’m working may way towards 10 000. That’s a nice solid figure I think!
(Time to stop!) 🙂
Aw! My old corroked fingers. You seem to have gotte a message intended for somebody else. Ed. I don’t understand whow that happened, but would you please just delete the message marked 8.35 am?