megan & steve

We captured around the property, inside the honey packing operations, and finally in Steves living room and a truly magnificent mirror- a giant Piranha. We chatted about all sorts of bee talk and mostly surrounding the technologies in the industry as well as how not disturbing the bees during honey extraction not only keeps them alive, it also improves the yield. By all accounts it can take upto 2 years for a colony to settle, grow and be happy enough to then produce excess honey outside of the amount required to sustain the colony.

Mount Lyford Honey prides itself on the fact their honey is 100% natural and derived from the available flowers, rather than feeding the colonies refined sugar. A practice that apparently is very common within the New Zealand beekeeping community. After I capture Sophie, who is a keen horse rider, I would have documented the complete crew at Mount Lyford Honey, who have all been brilliant to get to know and spend time with. Thanks for organising everything Megan! During the development of one roll, the ‘funnel lid’ of the Paterson tank fell out when I was pouring the chemistry back into the bottle. The light thankfully was not direct from above and leaks were manageable during post editing. The negatives were mostly OK but I lost a few images due to fogging and a crazy contrast shift, that breaks my heart. It was a mistake that could have been avoided too if I had simply the next day, as I was very tired. I must slow down and respect the developing process more.