The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure.

~ Mikhail Baryshnikov

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted. I’ve been busy creating and keeping up my RedBubble presence, but I’ve taken time to let this site rest over winter. Like a seed dormant in the dark stillness of winter. With spring, my energies are once again unfurling out. I’m eager to get back to tending this garden.

The photograph today was taken with my Canon 40D. Actually I should say that both photographs were. The background is layered with a close-up photograph I took of a building here in France — land of textures!

Get the card or print:

Get the print on RedBubble

There is not one big cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person.
Anais Nin

Photograph taken in my studio and layered texture treatments done in Photoshop.

There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic. ~ Anais Nin

Edge of Gold Dahlias in an antique vase photographed against vintage satin curtains.

This week, I dug up the Dahlias for winter. I have the last of them in a vase in the dining room. Winter is coming. There are glorious colors on the vines on the house. I’ll photograph them tomorrow.

I’ve been working hard on launching another of my sites on Blue Weimaraners so haven’t had time to post lately. When I’ve been working hard, I feel a need to post a flower and a quote. It instantly brings a lifting to my spirits. I do hope it does for you too.

I feel an indescribable ecstasy and delirium in melting, as it were, into the system of beings, in identifying myself with the whole of nature. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Photograph taken in my studio with a single on-camera flash bounced into a white card. This image captures the spirit of this delicate-colored yet exuberant Dahlia better than photographs I took of the whole flower.

When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, And the dimpling stream runs laughing by; When the air does laugh with our merry wit, And the green hill laughs with the noise of it. ~ Lord Byron

Photograph taken today. I’m rather thrilled with a new approach I’m taking. I’m just getting back into photography, so I don’t have much equipment. I’ve been photographing with natural light in my Veranda, but the space is tight, and the light seems to either be too dull or too strong and it’s hard to see the LCD view. So today, I brought up this pot of Fuchsia to my studio, set it near the skylight, put an on-camera flash on the camera and then holding the shutter release in one hand, I held up layered translucent curtain fabric in front of the flash for a home-made soft-box effect. I’m pretty happy with the results. I got nice detail in the flower and nice highlights. Next step will be to put the flash off-camera and set up another off-camera flash for the background.

For the background, I took one of Michel’s blue T-shirts and pinned it to the wall! It looked a little too much like a T-shirt tacked to a wall though, so I softened the wrinkles and then “burned” in some color around the edges using overlay layers in Photoshop.

May flowers always line your path and sunshine light your day. May songbirds serenade you every step along the way. May a rainbow run beside you in a sky that’s always blue. And may happiness fill your heart each day your whole life through. — Irish Blessing

Shirley Poppy in the garden taken late spring.

If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal—that is your success. All nature is your congratulation …
Henry David Thoreau

I took this photo of a pair of Morning Glories this week. I normally prefer photographing flowers under a slight overcast sky, but Morning Glories seem to light up from within when the sun back-lights the delicate trumpets.

I’ve been deeply delving into studying about back-end functionality and Internet marketing, so haven’t posted in nearly a week. Learning great stuff, but after a day of reading and taking notes, I felt a great need to finish the day with a flower. It’s nearly mid-night, but I’ll end the day with a Morning—Glory that is.

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. — Anais Nin

Peony from my garden. Oh, that brief time in May when my peonies are in bloom!

This photo is part of an “antiqued” series that I’ll be putting up soon and adding to the store. It will be available as cards, fine art and other products.

Nigella, Love-in-a-Mist, taken in my garden.

Use those talents you have. You will make it. You will give joy to the world. Take this tip from nature: The woods would be a very silent place if no birds sang except those who sang best.
Bernard Meltzer

A Dahlia from my garden called Edge of Gold, which is one of the giant Dahlias. I chose to zoom in pretty closely to eliminate any background distractions. I love coming in so close on a flower that you experience it. When we see a flower, our experience of it is heightened. We may smell the fragrance, feel the sunshine, hear the birds singing. Even our very appreciation of it enlarges our experience of seeing the flower. I believe this is why so often when we take a snapshot of a flower, the image’s impact is a disappointment in relation to the impact that flower had on us. To make up for the loss in the other senses involved at the time, we need to amplify the visual aspect.

To further concentrate our experience, I’ve also applied a custom, slightly grunge, frame effect around to anchor the view towards the center.