Question:
Will be in Maine and New Brunswick for a couple of weeks during the height of
black fly season and, short of a body length Haz-Mat suit and a 10 gallon drum
of 100% Deet, was wondering how to photograph comfortably without getting
bitten. For some reason these little bastards bother me a lot more than
mosquitos.
I bought one of those dorky looking hats with a built-in head net, which I'm
not too proud to wear, but am looking for ways to keep them off my wrists and
hands. I'm worried that the active ingredient in most sprays can cause damage
to the finish of my polycarbonate camera body.
Last time up there, a month before the true bug season, we had a hatch and the
guide gave me a sheet of Bounce fabric softener to wear under my hat, which
seemed to work for a while, but didn't help with the hands. Any tips from the
guys who live up there or shoot there often?
Answer:
I used to work during the summer months in black fly country, along the
Maine, NH border. One of my duties was at the summer camp was to keep the
barn staff in supply of sawdust for bedding in the stalls. My partner and I
regularly made trips to a local sawmill run by an old-timer. This mill was
of the oldest kind, a 20 foot long, one foot wide belt attached to the rear
wheel of an old truck, can't remember the year.
The sawyer had great fun at our expense watching us combat the flies one
spring, and laughing sauntered over. In classic downeast Maine-speak he
implied we needed a hat like his. Now, we weren't wearing any hats, and on
taking note of his questioned why on this earth we would need a hard hat to
shovel sawdust into the back of the truck. He replied, it isn't your health
I'm thinking of, but it would solve your problem with the black flies. Not
knowing where this was going I commented that the black flies were
particularly large this year, and particularly annoying, I still did not see
the need for wearing a hard hat.
It was then that he explained the hard hat was the solution to the bug
problem. You smear a little motor oil onto the hat... So the bugs don't
like motor oil I asked... no, it wasn't that they didn't like motor oil, in
fact they seemed somewhat attracted to it. The bugs would land on the hat,
smeared with motor oil, and get stuck, never to bother you again.
As an addendum, we returned the following year, and before we had even
backed the truck up to his sawdust pile we spotted a brand new front end
loader on the property. The old sawyer approached us and said he would be
glad to fill us up with his new front end load, to which we were ecstatic,
as it would save at least two hours of shoveling sawdust... "But... the old
guy says, I have only used it a few times, and then some birds took to
nesting in it, and now have babies, and I'm not going to move it again until
they are gone"
Happy to help out with your ensemble. Actually the gloves look quite
elegant; I'm not quite so sure about the pants :-) I occasionally use the
headnet from that set when I'm in the Arctic and the bugs are really thick.
It's lasted me several years so far (i.e. well worth the small price). I
just wear it right over my hat.
