Supper Bee
It’s difficult to get nature to cooperate, if it is aware of the camera it’s gone, if it’s oblivious to us it does what it wants not what we wish. This image must have been very difficult to get. These little creatures are fast and have the uncanny ability to disappear just as you press the shutter.
I like the placement of the subject off center in the frame rather than bulls eye in the center. The focus is excrement keeping the subject in fine detail while giving the background a nice soft effect.
Extremely dark subjects are difficult to photograph because if they are against a light background the camera does not have the latitude to capture both the darkest darks and the lightest lights. Either the whites will be blown out or the blacks will block up. In this image the photographer came up with the best exposure possible but still lost much of the detail in the black.
In the distant background there is a strong graphic element passing through the image. This is a distraction from the subject. The photographer may want to consider cloning this out of the composition.
Click on Image 
Modified 
June 29th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
James, thank you for your critique. I agree, the tree branch removed makes the photogragh look a lot better. I took over 5,000 photos of bees and ended up with this photograph as being the best one. Isn’t that crazy? I think I’ve given up on taking photos of bees for awhile. I’ll leave it up to the professionals.