"Pay attention to the world." -- Susan Sontag
 

Category: photography

Epic Lilies (1 of 3)

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From Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden by Eleanor Perenyi:

“The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were the golden age of plant collectors: David Douglas who brought the Douglas fir, the Monterey pine and many other conifers to England; John Jeffrey who followed Douglas to the American West; E. H. [Ernest Henry] Wilson who gave us the Chinese dogwood, the Regale lily and the dazzling Davidia or dove tree that in bloom seems to be aflutter with white birds; Reginald Farrer, George Forrest and dozens of others who changed the face of our gardens….

“Plant collecting was a dangerous business then. Douglas was torn to pieces by a wild bull in Hawaii; Farrar met his end in Upper Burma; Jeffrey vanished into the California gold rush; Forrest died of heart failure on his seventh expedition to Yunnan. And since that time the floral storehouses of western Asia have become if anything more difficult to penetrate….

“We hear no more of famous botanist-explorers or newly discovered specimens for the garden. Today it is the hybridizers who revolutionize our plantings, and of these none has wrought more changes than the American lily breeders in the last thirty years. We can now be said to dominate this field, though the lilies themselves have come from every part of the earth.”

Last year the pandemic shut everything down right about the time those of us with gardens in the Southeast would have just started hauling our donkeys to garden centers, stocking up on plants and flowers, dragging home bags of garden soil and pine bark … to begin the spring planting. With so many uncertainties and so much conflicting information flying around, I decided during the first shutdown to stay away from stores as much as possible — and so acquired nothing new for my garden, simply maintaining it and rearranging plants I already had.

But this year: a different story. On the day I hit two weeks after my second COVID-19 vaccine dose, I bought my first batch of new flowering plants in two spring seasons, including the delightful lilies featured in the galleries below (and in the next two posts). On that first and subsequent trips, I also acquired some new begonias, a hydrangea for a large pot, a hibiscus with orange flowers, four canna lilies (two of which joined the goldfish in my pond), bee balm, balloon flowers, and a couple of hostas. Most of them posed for photoshoots while still flowering (and the cannas are just starting to flower now), so will make appearances here over the next few weeks.

This plant is a Tiny Epic Asiatic Lily — whose flowers are a mix of yellow and orange in various saturations, with the centers of each bloom liberally sprinkled with cinnamon colors. The name cracked me up — I mean, isn’t “Tiny Epic” almost like describing something as “Small Big”? — but I think it’s named that way to differentiate this and other Asiatics from larger variants like the Regale lily mentioned in the quote above, or those lilies with big, trumpet-shaped flowers like those I photographed last year at Oakland Cemetery’s gardens (see Summer 2020: Lily Variations (7 of 10)).

Thanks for taking a look!

Late Spring Blues (2 of 2)

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From “Planting” in Tall Bearded Iris (Fleur-de-lis): A Flower of Song by Walter Stager:

“Light and shadow should be considered. Most irises look best in full sunlight, but a few (as, those with bluish color) look equally well in light shadow….

“The point of view should receive attention. Some irises are very beautiful when seen close at hand, but much less so when seen from a distance, and colors should therefore be chosen which will carry well the distance from which they will usually be seen….

“Delicate colors will be effective at a greater distance if they have a solid background to be outlined against.”

While there are no references to photography in Walter Stager’s 1922 book Tall Bearded Iris (quoted above), I thought it was interesting that his planting advice strikes such a visual chord: what he recommends for stylized planting of irises works equally well for photographing them.

Most of the images in the galleries below are from the same photoshoot as my previous post (Late Spring Blues: 1 of 2) — but processed with black backgrounds and cropped (in some cases) to embiggen the flower. The first two are new to this post: other random iris and shrubbery bits had photo-bombed the pictures, so these two worked best blacked-out.

Thanks for taking a look!

Late Spring Blues (1 of 2)

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From “Some Questions You Might Ask” in Blue Iris: Poems and Essays by Mary Oliver:

“What about the blue iris?”

From Irises: Their Culture and Selection by Gwendolyn Anley:

“As for the blue irises there is greater variety still, and a base of colour more susceptible of beauty. There are the shades that suggest blue fires and should be discussed in synonyms of fire or flame, the ice blue, sky blue, those derivative of the blue waters, campanula and delphinium blues, and many others. Among them a particular place is due to the irises that are of orchid or cyclamen colours, for they have a subtlety and delicacy of their own and can be among the most beautiful of the whole genus. They can be as rich and rare as orchids, or possess that especial cyclamen quality which is as though they were growing in an enchanted woodland … above a blue promontory or island-studded sea.”

I’ve written before about how interesting it can be to work with images of flowers where the dominant colors are in the blue-to-purple range (see Clematis Variations: Gallery 2 of 2) — and these batches of iris photos (from Oakland Cemetery’s gardens) proved to be no exception. Even as I was preparing to take the photos, I noticed that the apparent color varied depending on where I stood, and on the direction or intensity of light: stronger light made the flowers appear more purple than blue, the effect actually created by warmer color tones in brighter sunlight.

If you look at these photos (especially those in the first two galleries below) on a device that offers “night shift” — a setting that reduces blue light emanated by the screen — the colors in each of these pictures will shift toward purple because the blue color is muted. Sunlight variations produce a similar effect, as does selecting different white balance settings in the camera or in Lightroom.

Here, for example, is a screenshot of the second photo in the first gallery, with a warmer white balance applied to the image:

One approach I’ve adopted when working on photos where the subject is blue or purple is to pay attention to other colors in the scene as a clue to the “correct” (though highly personal and subjective) tones for the whole image. In this screenshot, for example, the green leaves look too yellow to me: iris leaves are a very rich green that typically doesn’t appear to have much yellow color when the plants are in their prime. And since green doesn’t “trick” the camera (or the eye) in the same way that blue or purple do, I know that the overall color of the image is too warm (or too yellow) so make adjustments to remove yellow tones from the photo — which in turn shifts the purple pixels to blue.

Flowers, of course, aren’t made of pixels. The flower petals have far more colored cells than my camera can individually pixelate — real life being infinitely more complex, nuanced, and detailed than its digital representations. In post-processing, I chose to emphasize the blue color in these images over the purple also because that’s how I remembered them; and because that provided greater tonal range (deeper blues with subtle purple highlights, instead of purple-purple) that better emphasized each blossom’s shape and texture.

Thanks for reading and taking a look!

Blue Iris, Blue Giraffe

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From Irises: Their Culture and Selection by Gwendolyn Anley:

“It is not to be expected of the [brown and sepia irises] that they should have the same opacity as the blue irises, that the petals should have the same translucence, the spicing or sugaring, as it were, with gleaming fibers or particles which are nothing less than the flesh of the pure blue iris, so much so that the inadvertent tearing of a petal may seem like the harming of an animal.”

Hello!

I’m working through the last of my spring iris photos (moving on to summer irises (if I find some) and late-blooming lilies soon), and for the last batch I’ve collected those images where the dominant colors are shades of blue, to post over the next few days.

When I finished post-processing for the iris below, I couldn’t stop thinking that its shape resembled the head of a giraffe. Anthropomorphism, of course, is the attribution of human qualities to nonhuman entities, usually animals, and very often domesticated animals. I don’t know if there’s a variation of anthropomorphism where humans (me!) find animal qualities in plants; I just know I saw this iris as a giraffe.

So I thought it would be fun to pretend I’d discovered a new iris: the giraffe iris. Imagine the fun I was planning to have with this little pretense, all sorts of shrieking blog words and hand-clapping about my great find.

However!!

Turns out someone already created a giraffe iris, noted not so much for its animal-like shape but for coloration that resembles a giraffe. See here — where you will find photos of the delightfully named Giraffe Kneehiz (knee-highs??) and a summary of its characteristics and hybridization.

Not to be dissuaded by actual facts, though, here’s my blue giraffe iris, from Oakland Cemetery’s gardens.

And here’s the blue giraffe — from Zoo Atlanta, where all the blue giraffes hang out — that inspired me.

See the resemblance?

Thanks for taking a look!

Memorial Day 2021

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From “Memorial Day Address (1884)” by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in American Speeches, edited by Ted Widmer:

“Every year — in the full tide of spring — at the height of the symphony of flowers and love and life — there comes a pause, and through the silence we hear the lonely pipe of death….

“Year after year lovers wandering under the apple boughs and through the clover and deep grass are surprised with sudden tears as they see black veiled figures stealing through the morning to a soldier’s grave. Year after year the comrades of the dead follow, with public honor, procession and commemorative flags and funeral march — honor and grief from us who stand almost alone, and have seen the best and noblest of our generation pass away.

“But grief is not the end of all. I seem to hear the funeral march become a paean. I see beyond the forest the moving banners of a hidden column. Our dead brothers still live for us, and bid us think of life, not death — of life to which in their youth they lent the passion and glory of the spring….

“As I listen, the great chorus of life and joy begins again, and amid the awful orchestra of seen and unseen powers and destinies of good and evil our trumpets sound once more a note of daring, hope, and will.”

From President Biden’s Memorial Day Address at Arlington National Cemetery:

“We are gathered at this sacred place, in this solemn hour, to engage in the most fundamental of undertakings: the rite of remembrance….

“We remember those who gave their all in the service of America, in the service of freedom, and in the service of justice. We remember their sacrifice, their valor, and their grace. We remember their smiles; their loves; their laughter; their essential vibrant and transcendent humanity.

“For while we stand amid monuments of stone, we must never forget that each of these markers, for those known and unknown, here at Arlington and far beyond represent a precious life: a son, a daughter, a mother, a spouse, a brother, a sister, a friend, a neighbor….

“Women and men, all those we honor today, gave their lives for their country, but they live forever in our hearts — forever proud, forever honorable, forever American.”