So I have been greatly inspired by spring and all the flowers. I know there's flowers all the time, but for some reason this year it's hitting me stronger than ever. I just find them so amazing and beautiful. I've been picking them and making bouquets for everyone! The wildflowers are the best. Along with the numerous azalea bushes. Azaleas are so vibrant and have huge flowers, apposed to other plants. In Louisiana azaleas are very popular and easy to grow, thus they are everywhere.
Driving to school everyday I pass countless azalea bushes along with a few fields of wild flowers. Both of which I wanted to use to my artistic advantage.
" Listen, can you hear it? Spring's sweet cantata.
The strains of grass pushing through the snow.
The song of buds swelling on the vine.
The tender timpani of a baby robin's heart. Spring. "
~Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneide
I'll be 100% honest when explaining these pictures. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I found some gorgeous little nook in some forest with a field of flowers and perfect lighting right around golden hour. In all honesty I wasn't even planning on doing a shoot that day. Kameron and I went on a bike ride to some old places in our neighborhood (before I got my car we rode our bikes everywhere; all of my summer 100 pictures were taken somewhere in the neighborhood). We pulled up by the pool house and there were three azalea bushes with a bunch of flowers on it. I had the idea of a shoot with flowers for weeks but never had any specific concepts. So we just started shooting and we came out with this picture!
“Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence.
Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance.
Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence.
Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.”
~Yoko Ono
The concept for this picture came about almost the same way as the previous one. After seeing how well the first 'shoot' went we wanted to do another similar one before we called it a day. When we got to our houses, we live across the street from each other, there was a tree with white flowers on it. So spontaneously I built the "flower afro" or crown. The only problem, and major issue, with this picture were the mosquitos. They were eating the both of us alive, more so Kameron.
I really appreciated the contrast in the two pictures that I came across while editing. The vibrant colors in the first one and huge flowers, symbolizing spring and new life. Contrasted with the black & white photograph with the small bokeh flowers. Which symbolized winter and death. Winter/Spring contrast played a huge role in creating these images. Along with the special touch of Mother Nature ;)
If you couldn't tell, I'm having fun experimenting with different way of cropping and layering. My whole thing about spring is starting new; shedding my skin. I've noticed a huge improvement not only in my pictures but in the process of creating them. Both shooting and conceptualization of the imagery. One thing I wanted to do when thinking about blogging was to create a series of images depicting, or documenting, nature's finest gifts; flowers. I went our and collected a variation of different flower species, hence the image above. By the time I got home I felt like a florist!
