6.15.2012

The Growing Season

Bleeding Hearts 3

For the past year and a half I have been experimenting with a new body of work. For the first time in the 35 years that I have worked in photography I have become obsessed with a project. I have been passionate about many other areas of my work but this is the first time that I hate to have to go to bed at night and can't wait to wake up in the morning to work on the project. 

Due to the nature of this project- working with live plants and flowers in bloom I feel compelled to capture as many images as I can before everything wilts or dies. Even within this project I have separate projects,one of which is capturing roadside weeds and wildflowers. I now have to be careful when driving on back roads not to end up in a ditch because I am focusing on all the plants along the side of the road.


These images seem very simple but they take me many hours to create, both in preparation and post production work. The work is all digital and for the first time I am not restricted in size for the final image. With my film based work, 11"x14" is the largest size that I can print in my wet darkroom. These digital images can be printed LARGE, some up to 5'.  I have printed several at 24" by 24" to start with and the scale is definitely an important factor in the power of the images. I do not understand why, but these images appear three dimensional even though they are two dimensional prints. An artist friend describes them as sculptural.

Leaf Dance



 Living in the north, we are accustomed to having a limited growing season. Because we have long winters, the short growing season in the summer seems more precious. For me, these images and this project show the contrast between plant life and our life. Our growing season need not be short or restricted to a particular time in our lifeline.


Dandelion


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