MELANGES

Textures in Blossoms & Petals

There was no plan when we created these images. There was a trundle (a tray on wheels) and a camera looking down on the trundle. It had been designed to photograph long sweeps of mums. When Susan brought me a basket of blossoms I realized I did not have a plan nor a clue to a plan. I thought for the shortest time it is possible to think and began picking petals off the blossoms and tossing them randomly into the trundle. Susan was horrified. At first.

I like images without a definite center of attention but with interest at every point and so this was ideal. I filled the trundle and moved petals and blossoms around so there were minimum concentrations. Then I photographed in overlapping segments to be stitched later and with focus stacking for each segment. This amounted to about 80 exposures. There are four images done over three years. The largest I have printed is 44" x 115" and that is hanging in our largest room.

These images are unique in the way they are photographed. The studio is a large room illuminated with 5000K complete diffuse light. In other words they are illuminated as if with sunlight without shadow. Additionally they are photographed with a high resolution digital camera in six sections and each sections employs focus stacking. Also, the prints are made on a state-of-the-art ten color ink jet printer. The result is a montage of portraits of a larve variety of blossoms and petals where every detail is visible. If they are illuminated with 5000K LED lights the image will appear exactly as it was photographed. Note that all the flowers were grown by my wife, Susan Ziegler had had to be picked in a short time (an hour or less) and photographed immediately to avoid degration of the flossomes, especially the day lilies.