Photographing
Flower is My Passion
No matter where they are!
I have always loved flowers since childhood. My great grandmother and all of her daughters had prized gardens and I always had a place in them. While not a whole row maybe, but always a plant of section of my own to tend. The glories of Spring and Summer in a California garden has never left me. My only regret each year was when it was over and the beauty was gone, replaced by only dead leaves and unkempt shrubbery.
Until I first saw the awesome paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe it never occurred to me that there was a way to save and savor the beautiful experiences of gardening. I had always drawn and doodled flowers, but my first experienced with a 35 MM camera drove home the impact and immediacy of photographic results. Even though, in the early days I was limited by a really meager budget and the interminable wait-time for commercial (drug store) processing and return time. The very best days came when I had my own darkroom and could not only process and print my own photos at my convenience, but I could modify the reality of what I had actually seen. I could make them better!
The biggest break-through of all for me came with the introduction of the digital camera. In the years that followed I purchased more and more sophisticated cameras. The best was a gift from my husband who bought me a Canon EOS 620, a truly professional model that I grew to love after learning to use it's sophisticated features. I had a 35-70 lens and a 70-300 lens. With them I captured my world! The first digital camera I ever used was an apple digital camera that was no more than 1 mega-pixel. I used that camera to photograph my students, include media in a newsletter for my department.... it got the job done! I finally decided I had to purchase my own digital single lens reflex camera. My first mega digital camera was the Canon EOS D-10. The good news was that my other Canon film lenses could work with it.
I concentrated on flowers since they were the closest and most readily accessible subjects to me. As I learned more, and revisited the work of Georgia O'Keeffe, I realized I needed a macro lens to really get close and capture the hearts and souls of the flowers I loved so much. The need for new equipment has never ended... more macros, ring-lights, extension tubes, flexible, articulating tripods... It never ends, but neither does my love of photography and especially flowers.
