Hana

Flowers for me embody perfection - a realisation of the completeness of nature .  They bloom seemingly without effort and every stage of this evolution is an expression of their complete and perfect  beauty . There is a difference between what I am aiming to create and botanical photographs . I want to capture the personality of the individual bloom - a moment of life and connection - a meeting . I don't want to make a picture that observes or describes a flower - I want to be inside the flower - to be flower  . To connect intensely . I resist the the temptation to name or learn the names of these flowers because naming them , or in an intellectual sense knowing is not conducive to clearly seeing . I want see these flowers with the naive -pure eyes of a infant . Continuously searching the forms as if the flowers will speak to me and show me who they are beyond the names they have been given . I try to leave myself out of the equation and see the flower - disappear into it . My approach to capturing this expression is similar to portrait photography .  Each flower has her own distinctive character and temperament and is in constant dynamic motion . I observe and continuously shoot the flowers from bud to blossom over the course of several days . They open to the warmth and close to shy away from cold turning and stretching always toward the light until they eventually  give up their petals . Sometimes this moment of ultimate expression comes sooner and sometimes later -  unless I observe the whole process I never know when .