Flower Portraiture

“Seeing for me is a way of knowing, photography a way of thinking”

                                                                             – Ann Whiston Spirn*

Dew covered thistle just beginning to flower, along a Cascade Mountain trail  

Photo by Renee Freier

 

“When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for a moment.  I want to give that world to someone else.”

                                                                                                      – Georgia O’Keefe

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These are the perfect sentiments that draw me to take photographs and to create these small flower portraits.  Moving in close, I look for a flower’s beauty in form, shape, color, or pattern; hoping to find what is exceptional about each and provide a unique view into their corner of the natural world. Each photo depicts at least one quality that I wish to emphasize and expresses the beauty I try to convey.

The overlapping forms of apple blossom petals
Photo by Renee Frier

Repeating pattern of the silk tassel shrubs catkins
Photo by Renee Freier

Vivid color of a Bachelor Button
Photo by Renee Freier

A study in green of the false hellebore
Photo by Renee Freier

Contrasting shapes of the hydrangea’s open and closed blooms
Photo by Renee Freier

The waving form of the mock orange petals
Photo by Renee Freier

Repeating pale folds of the rose petals
Photo by Renee Freier

Wild pattern of the anemone seedhead
Photo by Renee Freier

Taking these photos (and many more) allows me to see, wonder, and appreciate the small details that make the natural world endlessly fascinating.  Like Georgia O’Keefe, I wish to share that with those who take the time to look with me.

Renee Freier is a Senior Associate Landscape Architect at Land Morphology. 

*from the preface to Ann Whiston Spirn’s book Daring to Look