Yesterday was a tad challenging! After a 3 hr photo shoot in my newly set up downstairs studio, I put the sd card on mouse pad by the desktop before going to the gym to stretch.
It disappeared (gone), looked for an hour…this is a first…have to go back and redo the shoot…at first, frantic, then frustrated …went to sleep early…woke up resigned and determined…chalk it up to a new desktop workflow!!!
Yesterday, also decided to enter a photography competition sponsored by
PDNedu (our lab at SCSU had a pile of the mags last semester, –
Nikon sponsors this and it feels appropriate. Amusingly, the write up of a student who qualifies for a Senior Citizen Discount, also may make a nice story.
Am so glad the studio is set up. Years ago, I had one in the back of the store, Buds & Blossoms, (the paper rolled down over the books section)…it was functional and looked artsy. To the side, there was a beautiful long oval antique coffee table and a day bed with Laura Ashley material. The wallpaper matched. The sign outside was hand painted by a phenomenal sign painter. All kinds of fine art flower books spread out, nothing commercial…even the original
Martha Stewart Wedding book.
Unfortunately though, could never use the photo studio (no time after the arrangement was done and had to be out the door). I had hired the then head of photography at NYBG,
Alan Rokach, to give me private lessons. At the time, I was obsessed with the challenge of photographing all white flowers and containers. We had to use hot blue bulbs to balance off the color positive film. For someone who has straddled the digital divide, am really glad to be on this side:)…hence all the links to resources:) And, to continuing obsessions:
Yesterday, I found the original
Ronaldo Maia Decorating With Flowers books from a back basement room. Inside there were few torn pages from a NYT 1999 article about a famous fashion photographer,
David Seidner, who went to Miami to photograph orchids. At the end of his very brief life, he did a beautiful very soft focus orchid series. He collaborated with
Robert Fuchs who is legendary in the “orchid world.” When I first saw the soft focus series, it made much less visual and aesthetic sense to me. At the time, I was obsessed with the botanical work of Mapplethorpe. What was stored, though, was a very strong sense of fascination with the subject. Finding this article was a moment of joy!
From my current experience which is informed by many years of additional study and work, while all orchids present perfectly for literal photography, some also present as magnificently for a more abstract vision. Both approaches present new challenges.
So as 2020 arrives, here’s hoping for smooth, botanically inspired sailing. And knowing that there will always be unfulfilled challenges.
This is the same rose photographed in studio against a Slim Light Plano lightbox which makes it very easy to capture a nearly white background suitable for animating.
First saw this species at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens over 10 years ago & have been intrigued & obsessed w/it ever since…so it’s great that my neighbor, Jean, planted a vine that is thriving:) Passion Flowers grow on climbing vines..during their blooming season, the flowers start to open slowly…some varieties open later in the day and then close at night. So each day is a surprise. She had just watered the vine with an old fashioned large round sprinkler head. I just love photographing this flower.
