Floral Art

Thoughts on Fine Art Photography.

While it is important that photography work should

demonstrate some finesse, if only in the care and

attention applied to detail, I have an admission to

make. Much of the work sold on the "Fine Art"

market seems morbid and even sad. I recently

declined an offer of a gift in a photograpy shop.

The extraordinary flower closups in the calendar

offered were masters of the genre. However, on a

damp drizzly Winter's day they made me stand back.

They seemed dull and dead in the grey light.
I chose some landscapes instead, which had some

colour toning and somehow seemed less

claustorphobic. Also, the thought of box upon box

of flower photos at home, snapped in a cheerful mood

in the height of Summer and which pleased me far

more, inspired my choice.

The over-fetishism of flower photography is a trap

which is very easy to avoid, once seen. While I

admire the masters greatly I somehow recoil from

twisting and twirling my subjects into projections

of my own psyche. And I wonder if that is what

they actually do.

Objectivity? Even seen through the clinical

photographic eye, I doubt more and more that it

fully exists.


That said, here is a before and after exercise,

based on a doughty little narcissus which insisted,

unseasonably, on bursting into full bloom in a pot

out of doors just a few days after Christmas. It

continues it's headlong rush towards self-

propagation on and indoors window sill.

Now there's a metaphor worth exploring...