A spontaneous gift of honey
A Grecian luxury, and rediscovering an interest in photography
When we’re far from home, the moments that resonate with us the most – the experiences that feel different, meaningful or valuable – rarely have anything to do with a bucket list. Often they centre around a simple, unexpected interaction with a fellow human being. An exchange of spontaneous and mutual goodwill.
It was late autumn when I visited the Pindos mountains of north-west Greece, a region known for its wild mushrooms, bear-inhabited forests and antique Ottoman bridges spanning unpeopled gorges.
Walking into the little town of Grevena one afternoon, past abandoned construction sites and empty fields, we came to a bright stockade of beehives on a slope above the road – three rows of wooden boxes painted cheerful pastel shades. A man was bending over them, clothed in a big jacket and a netted hat with MADE IN CHINA printed in amusingly large letters across the front. My travel companion, who speaks quite good Greek, asked if we could approach to take some pictures. He returned a big smile and a generous shrug that implied “Of course, why would I mind?” and went back to his work.
One by one, each hive was being insulated for the cold months ahead. Unlike the autumnal warmth of the Peloponnese, where we had been a couple of days earlier, Grevena was feeling distinctly wintery whenever darkness descended. The soporific and homely scent of woodsmoke hung over the town as the nights drew in, and now the bees were receiving a similar treatment.1 With one hand the bee-keeper wafted his smoker around each hive, keeping its occupants docile while his free hand lifted its lid. A few slow inspections were made, then the smoker was placed on the ground and sheets of foam insulation were carefully inserted down the sides and over the top, before the lid was put back into place and the bee-keeper’s attention moved on to the next hive. A few sentinels buzzed angrily around his hat, thankfully failing to raise a more general alarm.
Later, as we continued our walk along the road, the bee-keeper’s car passed us on the way into Grevena, and two minutes later he was coming back the other way. Stopping beside us and winding down his window, he reached out and passed me a huge jar of honey, and gave another hospitable smile while I pathetically garbled the few words of Greek that I knew. (Without the net around his face I could now see his broad white moustache; he seemed the spitting image of Theodoros Ziakas, a local leader during the Greek War of Independence whose statue stands in the centre of Grevena.) Alms delivered, he did a U-turn and motored back into town. His return mission had been just for us.
With both hands I held the jar up to the sun and stared into the dark, beautiful treacle inside. The label seemed showed a neat illustration of a bear. Μέλι της αρκούδας, it read; Honey of the Bears.
Your first Greek honey will be transformational. For me, I was amazed by its complexity; it was a whole cosmos of sweetness, syrupy without being sickly-sweet, floral, herbal, earthy yet light – nothing like the monotone of bee-juice that UK supermarkets are stocked with. This was another gift to me (the bears’ honey was sadly too expensive to post home so I gave it to my host instead). It came in a large metal tin, unbranded and unlabelled, printed only with the words ‘Greek honey is the best’. It certainly is.
Back home in the UK, honey output is slowing, thanks in part to the decline of wildflower habitats, the heavy reliance on pesticides and the onset of climate change. Here in Greece, total production is about 10 times that of the UK and slowly rising. Judging from what I’ve seen, I’d bet that Greece’s bees are even busier than figures suggest. Much Greek food is artisanal, local, passed between friends and family – a foodie’s paradise but a statistician’s nightmare.
I was a bit wrong
Remembering this encounter with the Greek bee-keeper, I’ve had to reconsider something I posted a few months ago. I wrote about my disillusionment with photography, and why I was taking a break from the hobby. Focusing on image quality, I reasoned, can be a distraction, because the meaning we derive from a photo is unrelated to how technically ‘good’ it is. “Coming to terms with this disconnect between the camera and the emotional salience of the image has enabled me to free up that part of my mind that used to concern itself with image capture.”
The argument had legs, and I was pleased to be without my camera on a recent trip to Australia. However, I can’t ignore the fact that those photos of wild kangaroos and the Sydney Opera House don’t mean as much to me as the ones I took with my ‘proper’ camera during that simple little encounter in Grevena.
It probably wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t have a camera in my hand. Carrying a camera puts you in a more observant, curious mindset, and it affects the dynamic between yourself and your subject. Most people would feel differently about a stranger taking their photo with a ‘proper’ camera compared to a smartphone; the camera implies a kind of appreciation for the subject that a smartphone doesn’t.
I’m extra glad I have these photos now. Nothing to do with their quality; I was right about that part, because it’s not about the pixels. And I was right to downplay the association between more expensive gear and more meaningful images. But I was wrong to ignore the value in the extra emotional investment that photography requires. A passing snap on a smartphone doesn’t have the emotional quality of an image you’ve made an effort to compose. Because of this, there’s another factor I had overlooked: the difference between looking at your own images and someone else’s. The photos you take matter more to you because of the experience you had while taking them. The effort tends to be worthwhile regardless of the result.
So I’m slowly regaining interest in my camera again, though I don’t regret shunning photography for a while. While the “disconnect between the camera and the emotional salience of the image” makes me less interested in images these days, I’m just as interested in the process of taking them. (Similarly, I had a lecturer at university who was apparently more interested in reading the score of a Beethoven piano sonata than listening to it being played.) In recent years I’ve shunned many things only to come back to them with a renewed sense of purpose. A healthy pattern, I think, and something I stumbled into. It’s part of a kind of minimalist crusade that I’ll write about soon.
In the meantime, I’ll continue to travel with a ‘proper’ camera (nothing fancy, just a 7-year-old Canon 70D) to capture some of the characters I meet along the way. Although words are my native medium, I’m learning to allow myself to invest some love in the accompanying images too.
I’ve been back in Scotland for the winter so far and am now girding my loins for Europe in February and March. Substackery will ensue…
There’s something inherently nostalgic about the smell of smoke, as Peter Davidson noticed in his book, The Idea of North, writing in particular about the coal fires that powered the factories and warmed the homes of England’s industrial north. “Smoking itself and smoke-whitened air are almost part of the texture of the past now, part of nostalgia, part of the memory of how cities used to smell.”