Photographer Holly Lynton explains her image of a bare-handed beekeeper from the series Bare Handed
US photographer Holly Lynton describes how her photograph of a beekeeper with bees on his hands and face was made in New Mexico. It belongs to her series Bare Handed, about people who work with nature without fear.
American photographer Holly Lynton, born in Boulder, Colorado, in 1972, has described how one of the key images in her series Bare Handed came about. The photograph shows a beekeeper named Les, who works without gloves or a protective suit. It was taken in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the series focuses on people who approach nature respectfully, even when the situation might seem frightening or dangerous.
From a trapped bird to bees
The idea began when a bird became caught in the netting around raspberry bushes in Lynton's backyard. That made her think about how humans can obtain food and other necessities while still caring for the land. She wanted to find people working in tandem with nature, unlike the large-scale agriculture that other photographers had shown damaging the environment.
She met Les after speaking to the director of an Albuquerque exhibition space, who had hired him to remove a feral beehive from a tree. Lynton had earlier tried photographing another beekeeper in a full suit, but said he might as well have been an astronaut. With Les she worked for three days. On the third, his apprentice Amber arrived.
Bees on the face
Les kept the queen bee in a cage in his shirt pocket and asked Amber to take it out. She placed the queen in his hand, and the colony gathered there. He asked Lynton whether he should put the bees on his face, and she said yes. He kept his eyes closed for a few minutes and later said he could hear nothing but buzzing. The bees avoided his hair, so his beard and the top of his head stayed clear.
Lynton used a medium-format analogue camera, and bees also landed on her hands. Les advised her to move slowly, and she was not stung. She later photographed wolves in a sanctuary and a family catfish noodling in rural Oklahoma, catching fish by hand. These experiences convinced her that such experts treat their work as a meditative practice.
She says she is drawn to ambiguous, multilayered narratives, and likens this image to Greek mythology: like Odysseus, Les chooses to hear rather than protect himself. The book Bare Handed was published by L'Artiere.
