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Photographer Covers Models In Honey To Create Stunning Preservation Portrait Series (NSFW)

by 36 Comments

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The idea behind Preservation, was somewhat of an after thought. It occurred to Blake Little while shooting a male eating honey. That original concept was meant to bring the bear like qualities of the man to attention through the incorporation of honey. As he was shooting the man eating honey, Little noted the stereotypical idea was one of the more cliche photos he had created. As he sorted through the images from that shoot, he singled out the man’s hand, which was completely covered in honey–the amber colored liquid slowly rolled down his hand before dripping off his fingertips in a very captivating way.

The way the honey appeared to be preserving the hand instantly intrigued the photographer. He knew he wanted to pursue the notion of “preserving” people by drenching their entire bodies in honey before taking their portraits. The idea for the Preservation photographs was born.

“When I cast the for the shoot, I was looking for a real variety of people. There’s a 1 1/2 year old baby all the way to an 85 year old woman and different body types. The honey has a way of democratizing people. To transform them in kind of a universal way.”

Hundreds upon hundreds of pounds of honey later, Little has created an incredible eye catching portrait series that is part of his book titled: Preservation. The photos will also be on display as a solo exhibition between March 7 through April 18, 2015 at the Kopeikin Gallery in Culver City, California.

You can get a look at some of the behind the scenes action in the video below before you head over to Little’s website to check out more of his work.

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[ Blake Little via Laughing Squid ]

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  • Igor Farago

    Yes…. well….. art.

    • Bobba_Fett

      Just don’t tell the emperor

  • Fletch

    Really cool images.

  • Trish Schroeder

    I want to know if that baby freaked out.

    • Doody

      Or got botulism.

  • I’m conflicted… I don’t know if I’m intrigued by the compelling texture and lighting, or squicked out by “eeew, they’re all covered in honey” :)

  • Covering a baby in honey is not cool.

    • Aldo Fragossi

      I agree. THis guy should be arrested for Child Abuse.
      Aldo Fragossi

      • No

        How was the baby harmed?

        • Aldo Fragossi

          @No: The baby’s body language seems to indicate stress as does the young boy in the image below the baby’s. In addition, cleaning the baby may have caused considerable discomfort.

        • jt

          It probably wasn’t, but there’s a small risk of botulism poisoning if infants ingest honey.

          • Richard Cave

            spot on, children dont have the immune response to botulism that adults do, in fact it shuts down the muscles and puts them into spasm, and the baby will asphyxiate, a slow and agonising death. The photographer is a bloody idiot. It happens very quickly as well.

          • Dan

            But did it happen?

          • Erica Kamens

            How is that the photographer’s fault if he’s not also the father…? What about the parents?

    • Jules

      I agree. The baby covered in honey made me severely uncomfortable. I read somewhere that s/he was 1 1/2 years old, so more of a toddler- so the honey would have been completely harmless if ingested. However- knowing how my own toddler reacts to just water being dumped on his head- I fear this child would’ve started coughing and gasping and choking. I don’t like it at all because it’s not safe… but perhaps they just avoided the babies face, which is why they got the shot from the back.
      EITHER WAY- I still don’t like it. Nor the dog… or is that a live pheasant? Seriously? Seems like animal abuse too….

      • Tink

        Guess what. The child is facing away from the camera because THEY DIDNT PUT HONEY ON ITS FACE. Use your brain.

        • Tink

          And no, the animal is NOT alive. You are seriously so stupid.

  • All I am thinking is how much effort it needs to clean it off…………..

  • Ralph Hightower

    Looks like a sticky situation.

  • Aldo Fragossi

    Well this certainly hits a new low, even for DYI Photography. These jokes that call themselves artists don’t know what to do next and end up making fools of themselves, not to mention their Models
    Common Tiffany! You hold the reputation of this website at your finger tips. Find us some good stuff, not drivel like this.

    Aldo Fragossi

    • Not Fragossi

      I’m all for legitimate criticism but you are not making any legitimate points about the technical aspect nor the creative components of this series. You resort to ad hominem attacks instead of offering substantive criticism.
      What is it that you dislike? Use your words.

      • Aldo Fragossi

        @Not Fragossi: Thanks for your question. You make an excellent point that criticism should be robust, not hollow. It should also be fair. To your point of not making any legitimate points about technical aspect nor the creative components of this series… This is simply sticky gunk pored over bodies. To the technical aspects: I ask, how difficult is it technically to pour honey over someone, stick up a couple lights and snap a picture? The most difficult technical issues would be trying to figure out how to get this stuff off of the bodies and how to clean up the floor. In hindsight, after reviewing my original post, name-calling and unjustified comments are not only juvenile, they should never be part of an intelligent public forum. Unfortunately I was a party to such aberrant comments.
        Aldo

        • jt

          The level of technical difficulty isn’t the only factor to consider when you’re talking about art. That’s a totally unfair position to take. Say it was really difficult to pour honey on people for some reason, would that make these photographs better in your opinion?

          • Aldo Fragossi

            @jt: Art is in the eye of the beholder. You may think this is art but I happen to disagree. I am sure there may be cases where the opposite is true. To offer a direct answer to your question: No.
            Aldo

        • dan

          Arvo pärt’s music was labeled under the genre of simplicity. Don’t look at what it is but what it means. Yeah it’s just honey poured on someone but Picasso paintings even his mum list ones are just paint on paper. I’m not comparing him to Picasso but if the only way you value art is by its technical demand then you are far from the point of it.

          • Aldo Fragossi

            @dan: I don’ find a need to defend my position on art but in the spirit of responding to your post, I appreciate and respect art more for the aesthetic/creative side than technical. To me these pictures are lacking in both.
            Aldo

          • Michael

            By that same token, one could argue that [insert literally any genre/style/technical of photography here] and “snap a picture”?

            This is a photography website, celebrating and embracing all that is photography in all forms. Your opinion on the matter has been clearly stated. There are those who disagree. Those who do are entitled to the same amount of respect and humility.

            If you can’t abide by the expectations of good conduct, then you should consider leaving this forum of public debate.

  • Wow

    In the video on this page[1] the photographer states he used about 900 five pound buckets of honey. I’m gonna estimate 4.5 of those 5 lbs is honey and the other 0.5 is the bucket, so he used about 900 x 4.5 = 4050 lbs = 1837 kg of honey. This page[2] says the density of honey is 1420 kg/m3, so that leaves us with about 1.294 cubic meters of honey. Converting that, we get 262,463 teaspoons. This means that these photos come at the expense of the lives of approximately 3,149,556 bees.

    Additionally, a quick google[3] tells me the average lifespan of a worker bee is from 1-4 months (we’ll say 2.5), meaning around 655,722 years worth of bee work hours went into this.

    1. https://www.diyphotography.net/photographer-covers-models-in-honey-to-create-stunning-preservation-portrait-series-nsfw/
    2. http://physics.info/density/
    3. http://www.columbia.k12.mo.us/bre/jpope/webquest/insect/bee_lifespan.htm

  • Three concerns here – the baby, the dog (which doesn’t seem to showing in this particular set, but was in another version of the series I’ve seen) and, the fact that bees seem to be disappearing at an alarming rate due to some pesticide component (neonicontinoids), so, the simple waste of food.

  • Afraz

    I’m all for expression, but wasting food in the name of art is a big no-no.

  • Kenneth Noisewater

    Waste of some bee’s hard work.

  • Kenneth Noisewater

    The results are very photo 101. There’s nothing special or spectacular about them visually and the aspect of people covered in honey is probably supposed to be shocking or compelling but it feels really forced. We’ve seen those poses countless times, they’re cliche.

  • Ken Merfeld

    Can you say Ohio Players “Honey” album from 1975 !! ??? Hmmmm. …

  • Why did it have to be honey? Bee farming is already a problem that is
    damaging our environment; bees are absolutely crucial to pollinating of
    plants, and without them, we have no way of inducing pollination
    ourselves. Say what you will about this art, but I just have to ask why
    did have to be a waste of honey, when we should be limiting our use of
    such products in the first place?

    What you’ve done is just a tier below slaughtering a dozen pigs and
    using their blood to make “art” just because you can and you have the
    money to do it.

    In general, artists are so self-obsessed or have such a single-minded
    “cause” for their work, that they believe the ends justify the means:
    “My art is so good, it doesn’t matter what we lose to make it.” And
    this why artists are the ones desecrating national parks, historic
    landmarks, throwing paint into geysers and staining the earth red
    because they think it looks “cool”.

    My only message to this artist, and those who think like him, is this:
    grow the fuck up; you can’t get everything you want just because you
    want it; think of something other than yourself for once, you arrogant
    pricks.

    The fact that the “art world” has sunken so low as to actually put these photographs in galleries and worship them deeply saddens me. This should not be allowed to happen; these artists are remorseless and should not be praised.

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