Week 4 - 2016
Carll Goodpasture, Dog Rose, 1999. Property of the Preus Museum collection.
The meaningful lives of bees
Can we imagine humming bees and aromatic roses now that the cold is biting us on the cheek? The American nature photographer and entomologist (researcher on insects) Carll Goodpasture (b. 1945) is concerned that we will not forget bees and other related species. He is burningly committed to the battle against the earth's increasingly rapid environmental changes. He is particularly engaged in the struggle for protection of biological diversity.
In the picture we don't see a bee but a hoverfly, sometimes called a flower fly, which comes from a family of insects rich in species, some resembling bees and wasps so as to protect themselves from birds. The natural world is wonderful, fantastic. Imagine a summer without bees, with no insects that pollinate and see to it that we have berries and fruit. Goodpasture's images can be seen as beautiful reminders that we need a functioning ecosystem and are deeply dependent on nature's diversity.
As a photographer he has been involved in many projects, some of them lengthy. For more than seven years he has persistently photographed the compost in his garden. He has also photographed the Norwegian landscape in his own way, using black-and-white and a pinhole camera. Central in all of his photography is the human relationship with Mother Earth.