Meet the Photographer Drenching His Subjects in Honey

"Tao," 2012. Images via 

Full buckets of honey are dumped on the bodies of Blake Little's human subjects, from young babies, to athletes, to 85-year-old women, drenching them in the gooey, golden syrup. For photo series, Preservation, the photographer uses the sticky stuff to capture varying body types, ages, races, and sizes like flies trapped in amber. “The honey has a way of democratizing people, to transform them in kind of a universal way,” Little explains in the behind-the-scenes video below.

Explains Kenneth Lapatin, associate curator of antiquities at J. Paul Getty Museum, “Blake was amazed by honey’s transformations … how it can distort and amplify forms, highlight physical perfection, engender repulsion, and suggest both immortality and death.” While the resulting images will be showcased in a book and exhibition at the Paul Kopeikin Gallery on February 28th, for future Preservation works, we recommend Little get his honey on tap.

Below, watch Little’s honey-covered creations come to life:

Related:

Massive LED Hive Makes You Feel Like A Honeybee

It's Art: Black-and-White Studio Portraits of Goats

The Next Generation of Pancake Art Uses Facial Recognition Software