Bee dazzled
IN PURSUIT OF POLLINATORS
HERE’S HOW James Dorey, travelling in a mobile workshop, captured the extraordinary bee images you see in this issue: “After catching a single individual (or one of each sex) of a new bee species, I pin each specimen in my van at the end of the day and prepare my studio – a simple drawer under my bed, which significantly reduces my head room! With dual flashes and a specimen in place, I manually set my camera and, using a rail system, set start and end points with increments (from one-fiftieth of a millimetre to 1mm) for the camera to move between each shot. This can result in 2–250 shots that then need to be stacked into one. I then pass images through three programs: Zerene Stacker, to combine the images; Photoshop, to remove the pin, dust and stacking errors; and Lightroom, to adjust brightness and keep colours true to life. From start to finish, a single image can take anywhere from one to four hours.”