Sometimes when I’m reviewing footage…I get hellos from beings I didn’t notice in the field.    A flying insect?  A bird?  A bee?  A cameo or a photobomb. I’m focused on something in the background as they become another part of the foreground.  When editing in post-production, I’ll often slow down the footage to frame by slow frame, so I can witness them again and again, glide across the screen, and maybe catch a fleeting moment they are in focus and can be fully seen.

Other times when shooting in the field, there’s a swirling swarm all around that I am actually trying to capture, and I’m not even sure if I’m getting it!  I can sense the air buzz around them, and I fully see them in person. Most of the time I don’t know what we humans have ‘named’ them.

But what I do know is that these little bitty beings are really a foreground of the story.  They are essential to habitat, to pollination, to other migrating beings and maybe even beneficial ways we have yet to discover.

The butterflies, the birds, the spiders and even the I’m-going-to-taunt-you-while-you-film mosquitoes…all have their place in the web of life and the weaving of this story as well.

Bill Zeedyk’s always talking about their importance.  And in the days when he carried his 35mm camera with him out in the field on projects, he took a few intentional portrait shots of his own.  Check out that post too.