Archive for the ‘Botanical Fine Art’ Category

I think I shot my first “botanical” image the year after I finished high school with the Pentax K1000 my mother gifted me for graduation. I didn’t realize I was shooting with slide film. The lab didn’t catch it either and the film was “cross-processed.” I had an image of a bleeding heart that came out in the most shocking blues and purples and pinks. I was hooked. That bleeding heart image is still one of my all time favorite shots. While I obviously pursued a career as a destination wedding photographer, which naturally expanded into a fine art baby portrait photography, botanical photography has long been my heart’s passion. Being in a botanical garden skimming over the flower beds looking for the sweet faces that are looking right back at me, unabashedly, so comfortable in their own skin, asking me to take their picture, is heaven. My experience with botanical photography is akin to boudoir imagery. Sensuous, soft, brazen, delicate, powerful. So many soft and intricate layers. A boundless array of forms, shapes, colors, sizes, details. How could you possibly say that one type of flower is prettier or better than another? Each one of these images, and the hundreds of others I have in my collection, is a picture of absolute perfection. It is my joy and my bliss to create these photographs. I can’t imagine that you could adore them as much as I do, but I hope you do enjoy them.

These are snapshots of the very last-minute gallery hanging I did at Bittersweet coffee shop in old-town Louisville, CO. Ironically, this is the exact past location of Recherche Photography studio where many of these images were hanging a few years ago before we finished renovating this house I decided to move my studio back home. I’ve stayed in touch with the owners and when an art show was taken down unexpectedly and their walls were painfully bear, I got a phone call. We pulled frames out from under our beds and off the walls of our house and I literally hung this within 4 hours of getting the request. I am happy to have all these beautiful images out breathing some fresh air. (Though I admit I’m missing the angels and many of the botanicals but I’ll have them back on my walls soon enough.) Stop by for a cup of coffee and enjoy the scenery until the end of February!

In my recent post of Botanicals from Portland I shared what lured me out to the Northwest this summer. One thing Jay and I have in common is travel lust. Here’s a little insight into how my brain works: “Help my sister move to Portland? Sure! Hmmm, if we’ll be in Portland we could pop into Seattle for a bit. And Seattle is so very close to Vancouver. Which is just across the way from Victoria. I wonder if anyone would like to meet us there.” And now we have a much bigger trip than a zip-zop out to Portland. Jay takes it even further by looking into ocean fishing. It snowballs. Every time. We have traveled quite a bit and this is the only way it gets done. We never really have enough money to do the trip. It’s always a crazy mad dash to get on our way. And a whirlwind when we return. Lots of sorting and catching up. But it’s addictive. So we hopped a train, a taxi and a ferry. We lost our iPad on the train and recovered it on the way back. We lost my favorite nalgene on the ferry but Jay got me three new ones (pretty much now in LOVE with the Klean Kanteen) so I’m OK. We went salmon fishing and brought home 50 pounds of the most delicious fish in the world which is sitting in our freezer. (Actually I’m pulling a couple pieces out now that I’m writing this, now that I mention it.) We visited several gardens and spent a full day and an evening at the Butchart Gardens. Paradise. I’ve been aching to get back there for years. I just wanted another shot (as it were) at their begonias. And I got it. Deep sigh of relief. Can you believe that every image in this blog post is of a begonia? Aren’t they just exquisite? I want to print them as 30×40 canvas gallery wraps and build huge antique white-washed frames for them. Someday perhaps I’ll have a big Anthropology-Farmhouse Boutique with the walls covered in these images so people can see them the way I do. Dreaming. . .