Botanicals

Ego can be a dangerous thing; it can lock you up in a box of your own making and prevent you from fully expressing yourself. For years I defined myself as a landscape photographer, in the Western tradition of mountains and streams, trees and coastlines. So I say this with humility: at times I like studio photography. Being in the studio is about precision and control and it appeals to my technical side. But like a dear friend has told me over the years, I like clouds just too damn much to make being in studio a real thing. This is true, I like to be outside too much. I like to be in the rain and roll around in dirt.

A few years ago on a boring sunny day, I grabbed my camera and wandered into a local park. For a full day, I wandered around with a macro lens attached to my camera (used to focus extremely close) and a small circular fill card (used to bounce light in or flag light off a subject). The park became my studio and the plants I found became my product. I had an absolute blast. It merged, in a completely natural way, two things I enjoy about photography: the control of being in a studio and the pleasure of being outside. I used shape, lines, and texture and purposely placed shadows to enhance the compositions. These days I take a bit more gear; a small strobe and soft box, reflectors, clips and clamps. I often sit or lay down and work a single plant. There's delicacy and intention in my approach.

When I photograph these botanicals I lose myself in abstraction, color blocking, shape and leading lines. What these do for me is allow me to exercise a part of my creative brain I don’t get to exercise when photographing landscape. There is a certain amount of control with landscape photography (when to shoot, lens and filters, development and editing), but it lacks a direct control over the subject. Photographing botanicals allows me a freedom of choice landscape doesn't. It's a different side of my work that I've been more quiet about, but I'm proud to give it a new home on my website.