apis melifera:
The Photography of Bill Smukler

Apis Mellifera:

Latin for Honey Bee—meaning bearer or carrier of sweets or nectar.

My father did not speak to us about his photography in words. This was unusual for him.

When I was a child, I would sit for hours as he told me about the life of the honey bee—the social organization of the hive, the use of royal jelly ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture. He also talked about the need to be calm and steady when working with the hives. My father would also speak to us at length about other parts of his life. We heard about his childhood, including how profoundly he felt the early loss of his mother and his harrowing journey from the Soviet Union through Poland to the United States. We heard about how he loved the Boy Scouts and the friendships he developed there. He talked about his family, including the good, the heroic, and the kooky. He did not neglect the skeletons in the closet. He talked about how he worked and got through college—Cornell—during the depression. He also talked about his experiences as a soldier during the war. My father talked about his health—his migraines and his hernias. He talked about his wartime courtships. He talked about how he started a business after the war to support his new family. Later, my father would talk to us about the breakdown of his marital relationship and the divorce. He would also talk without apparent boundaries about his new career as a psychotherapist and his new relationships.

One day, when I was under 10 years of age, I went with my father to his work at the auto parts store. At lunchtime, we went down the street to the little inner city luncheonette. After, instead of returning to the store, we continued down the street to a different building. My father unlocked the door, walked down a hall, and ushered me into his darkroom. I can still see in my mind’s eye the dim red light, the funny way negatives projected their images in the enlarger, the smell of the chemicals, the darkroom clock with the glowing radium numerals, the mounting machine that looked like a dry cleaner’s laundry press and, most of all, the magic as the positive image emerged in the gentle waves of the developer tray. I also remember the images themselves. They have remained with us. They are iconic. We can refer to them within our family and we all know exactly what we are talking about. They reflect my father’s feeling for the human condition, his empathy and his genuine love of his subjects.

My father did not speak to us about his photography in words. He did, however, speak about his photography in the images themselves. I am honored to preserve and pass on many of those images in this book.