My love for flowers and their seemingly unlimited variations in color, form and geometry is deeply held. As a child, I would pore over photos of exotic and probably impossibly lush flowers in seed catalogs, dreaming of creating my own extravagant garden. I was barely an adult when I made that dream a reality by starting my own flower farm in the Napa Valley. Those years were both the hardest and most satisfying of my life. As a photographer, I visit many professional gardens and continue to be dazzled with new discoveries, while eagerly anticipating the reliable profusion of seasonal classics like magnolias and peonies. Living in the San Francisco Bay Area provides four full seasons of colorful beauty to explore.
Flowers, and live botanicals in general, are some of the very best subjects for infrared photography. They reflect and transmit a tremendous amount of infrared light, creating the signature ‘infrared glow’ effect that makes this medium special. I sometimes like to combine this effect with other creative techniques such as macro photography to create images that upend our sense of familiarity with our surroundings. Whether captured in situ or as a still life in my photo studio, my aim is to reveal the strange and surreal botanical beauty that is all around us, yet just slightly out of sight.
