Tuesday 15 March 2011

A Buzzing in my Ears!

Once when I was a child, I saw wasps flying in and out of a small hole in the ground in a wood. Like an idiot, I picked a stone and dropped it on the hole. Quick as a flash, several wasps flew to my my bare leg and stung me. I cried a lot because it hurt so much. For years afterwards, well into adulthood, I would tend to run around in panic and wave my arms about if a wasp came near me. This tended to antagonise them and I would be singled out for attention. Onlookers would think I had gone insane. I don't blame them for thinking that. Then one day, a friend showed me how to pick up a wasp that had settled on my scone as I ate it in the garden. I tended to relax more in future although the sight and sound of a swarm strikes fear in my heart. Imagine my feelings when I put a glass plate negative into my scanner and it produced this image. Spare a thought for the brave photographer whose camera would have been mounted on a tripod and, after inserting a glass plate, pulled the black cloth over his head and took the cap of the lenses to record this shot. I don't think I could have done it. What creatures frighten you?

There is a religious feel to this image. It  reminds me of the crux ordinaria or latin cross

3 comments:

  1. Snakes, worms and spiders! I react very much like you did with your wasps. I get all crazy and stuff and run around like a chicken with my head cut off, jumping up and down and screaming that horrible high-pitched scream we girls have.

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  2. Quite stunning image. Indeed religious in nature.

    I still have no tolerance for hornets and wasps. I love bees of all kinds, but get a certain pleasure out of watching wasps stuck in traps. I have yet to find out their purpose. Oh sure, they do some pollinating (thank you very much) but they have such bad attitudes. I recall mowing the back lawn when too late I discovered I'd just mowed over the entrance to their home. They came charging out of that hole and, like you, I took off running. I was peeling clothes off as I ran into the garage. I went out once the sun went down and retrieved my clothes. Hate the little nasties.

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  3. The Groke frightens me.
    That's quite a photo. I wonder if the photographer got stung?

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