Florigraphy

Description

I believe that a good photograph is not about what you shoot, it's about how you shoot. It isn't about what you see, it's about how you see.Flowers are, by design, seducers. They exist to perpetuate their own species. Blossoms are their reproductive structures. Anchored to the plant, a flower cannot go off in search of a pollinator. Instead, it must attract the attention of a pollinator and entice it to make contact. The bold physicality of a flower – its sculptural form, its unique color palette, its delicious scent – is something we usually appreciate from a distance. Only rarely do we thrust our nose right down into a flower to sniff and stare. I first began shooting flowers casually, several years ago, in an attempt to hone my camera skills. I chose flowers because they were readily available – and static. Soon I found myself totally engaged by my subjects. I brought my camera closer and closer, attempting to experience the plant's "monumentality" much as an insect might. When I select a flower to shoot, I don't pay much attention to its color. Sculptural form is my primary consideration, along with the quality of light and how it interacts with the bloom. I am not interested in creating “pleasing illustrations” of flowers or plants. Instead, I strive to reveal them as I experienced them in space and time. About the Architecture I am no student of modern architecture, but I am certainly an admirer. My travels have taken me to some remarkable urban environments. Hiroshi Hara's Station Complex in Kyoto, Japan, and his Umeda Sky Building in Osaka provided an immeasurably rich experience, as did Johann Otto von Spreckelsen's Grande Arche at La Défense in Paris, France. However, it was never my mission to objectively "document" these monumental structures. That would be, I think, almost impossible. Instead I've carefully recorded what I've seen through my own lens – and through my own sensibility. In that respect, my approach is similar to that of the botanical photography insofar as I am primarily interested in form, light and composition. However, I particularly enjoy the ambiguity of space and scale that occurs in the presence of these huge, reflective facades. When I capture one magical moment of the fluid interplay of reflected light and shadow, sky and clouds, human beings and adjacent structures, then I know I've created a unique photograph.

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