One sunflower, a camera, and time in the studio. That really is all I need to supercharge the desire to make a little bit of art. Photographing flower portraits (if you will) is my life long passion project. Taking blooms and truly spending time observing their beauty and uniqueness brings an immense amount of joy to me.
The process takes time. I bring a bouquet of flowers into the studio and simply start photographing it. It’s a little messy in the beginning as I fuss with the arrangement, shifting and turning it to change how the window light skims across. I’ll start noticing details of individual blooms in this process and begin to isolate one stem to study it closer.
I start exploring all the little details, textures, oddities and movement of this one bloom. I love a good overall bloom image but I want the image to convey how it can make the viewer feel. Slivers of focus where petals blur into each other. How one petal bends over the others. The spikiness of the leaves. The softness of the bloom. I want the viewer to take a deep breath and almost melt into the image as they discover how it makes them feel.
Black and white felt right for these. With sunflower’s I almost always end up editing in black and white. There is so much wonderful texture and the details are what draws me in. It makes me want to strip away the color and leave just the form and grit of the bloom. I’ll share the colors soon though.
A few details if you are interested: Canon R, Sigma 70mm Macro / ISO 1250 / f/4.0 / Shutter 1/100 – 1/250 / Window light / Black Foam Core background.
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