I have long been inspired by Pre-Raphaelite paintings, in fact my very post when I began my website was about them (and you can still read it here). That is without doubt my favorite era of art history. The romance in every single brush stroke that culminates in a grand painting of dreamy landscapes, flowers, and elegant figures gets right to my heart.
I got a little inkling, today, sitting next to this potted plant, with the warm late summer morning light streaming through the trees, that perhaps I could create photographs that are reminiscent of these paintings. It is a difficulty that I enjoy, to try and meet the light and my surroundings in ways that become painterly whereas an artist’s model is guided to the right position to create the painting, or it comes from their studies in the field.
For me to take a photo alone, I have to guess at what the camera is seeing. That is why I call this Listening to Flowers. I turned on my camera to record, and walked over to this beautiful begonia. I kneeled before it and studied its blooms with my hands, running my fingers through the leaves. Then it was almost as if I felt guided to turn my head to catch the light just so, here, and turn these fingers to avoid shadow, there—a silent conversation between me, the flowers, and an invisible portrait taker at the lens. I ended up with this photo, which I quite love.
There is some sort of magic in my lens, and my camera. It could simply be attributed to being a very inexpensive piece of equipment, where the focus is just lacking enough detail to create photos that look more like paintings than hyper realistic things. But, I can get very sharp photos from it as well using the same handling and settings. There is a mystery there. And I really really love that.