My Muse? Flora, Goddess of Flowers

[Louise Abbema, "Flora," 1913]

Over at Shutter Sisters, a great site (check it out), Kim raises the question, "What is your muse?"  For me, I guess it's flowers.  I'm stalking the elusive shot in my garden all the time; my calendar is full of the dates of the annual show of every kind of flower society in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties.  I love to go to those flower shows because they present a wonderful challenge -- they're often held in the high school cafeteria (horrible lighting), people are milling around (can't use a tripod, can't get in people's way), the backgrounds are awful (worn-out cafeteria tables with labels all over them).  I love seeing what I can get in these awful conditions and consequently am tickled to death when something comes out right.

Most recently, I've gone to the Santa Cruz Orchid Society show.  The orchids were fabulous, but the conditions even worse than usual -- it was overcast and rainy outside, rendering the lighting even more inadequate.  Still, it was fun, and I came out with some good pictures, using my trusty 40D and a monopod (one of my favorite camera accessories).  

The background image on my blog is from that day; here's the complete picture:

The flowers on this orchid (I don't know it's official name) are the little orange string-of-beads things -- it's a neat plant.  I really enjoy the ones that have odd little "flowers" -- some of the orchids are very strange.

[Life-n-Reflection, Weekend Texture Twist]

This is a beautiful orchid -- it was sitting right by the window so the light coming in was very nice, and with some judicious cloning, I got it to look pretty good, I think.

[All textures are from Flypaper Textures]

This one came out well, too -- I like the way the flowers look like they're spilling down the frame.  


Although textures won't go far in fixing bad photography, they can be very helpful in camouflaging messy or otherwise inappropriate backgrounds, and they can cover up some of the cloning you will need to do in those cases, to get the attention onto the main subject where it belongs.  


I hope that Flora would be pleased with my offering.

[Sandro Boticelli, detail from "Primavera," c. 1482]

   

Turn and Face the Strange . . .

I hate change. Seriously, I do -- when I move into a place, I put the furniture down and never move it again. Never. If I like the green curry or beef teriyaki at a restaurant, I will order that and nothing else, or if I do order the red curry, I will immediately regret it. I have worn my hair the same way for about, oh, 25 years now. So making all the changes I've made in the past seven years has been unsettling, to say the least: deciding to end a 28-year marriage, playing the dating game for the first time in 30 years, meeting and marrying a wonderful man, acquiring the little girl I'd always wished for, moving far from where I'd lived for most of my adult life, changing positions at work, actively planning my retirement -- and wondering where I got the ooomph to do it all, to uproot myself from essentially everything I've ever known and plunk myself down in a completely different world.

Accompanying all these life changes has been a creative change as well -- having defined myself as a writer since childhood, I am now reinventing myself as a photographer and artist. In a way, the change from being accomplished in my work and creative life to being a newbie, from being a teacher to a learner, from being verbal to visual, has been as startling and unsettling as any of the other major changes I've made -- in a way, more so. It involves literally seeing the world differently, from a different vantage point, and also opening myself up to experimentation, error, and failure, along with surprise, delight, and success. It has moved me way out of my comfort zone, but in the end, that's a good thing, because it allows me to see that hating change is a way of staying closed to life, of hoarding up and protecting what's safe and predictable, of saying no to the possibilities that still exist out there, no matter what stage of life you're walking through.

"So I turned myself to face me . . . " If nothing ever changes, then you never have to take a look at yourself, because it's all so well known. Take a chance. Turn and face the strange.

And here are some little orchids that are kind of strange.

[Thanks to Florabella Textures]