The famous artists Diego Rivera and  Georgia O’Keeffe inspired me to think of flowers as sculptures and forms in my photography. I started thinking of some as photo paintings. To me, a flower is more than just a flower; the photography is not the point.

Flowers can mean a lot of different things to different people.

Diego was once married to another famous artist, Frieda Kahlo,  and they had been friends and co-conspirators all their lives.

I like to think of my flower photos as art, whether other people do or not. They draw me in that way as I have always been drawn to art, but only recently to flowers.

 

 

Diego was known for his superb paintings of the Calla Lili. I saw one in a museum once and just recently remembered it. Sue Lamberti, the owner of the Cambridge Flower Shop, showed me some Calla flowers yesterday and said she thought they might appeal to me in my photographs.

I brought some home and have been running around all day experimenting with how to photograph them.

Boy, was she right. I’ve spent much of the weekend trying out different lenses. Sue knows her flowers, and she knows my photos.

Here are four. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have enjoyed figuring out how to photograph them. Flower sculpture, I like it. My 105 mm Sigma lens helped me out:

 

I have a new and unique relationship with these flowers; they are much more than flowers.