Thursday, June 12, 2014

Flowers to Photograph and Paper to Make!

Between a trip to Yellowstone, my son's end of the school year activities, and a trip up north, I've been squeezing in visits to the Beal Garden at MSU to capture the shadows of blooming plants. It seems there are at least one or two plants per week that I am chasing. And of course, the conditions have to be just right - bright sunlight either in the early morning or late afternoon to get a side shadow, and not too much wind. It's not too much to ask, right?

In the last two weeks I've photographed Prairie golden alexander (Zizia aptera), Prairie smoke (Geum triflorum), Lakeside daisy (Hymenoxys herbacea), Spiderwort (Tradescantia bracteata), and Goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis).

I've also been collecting invasive Dame's Rocket (Hesperis matronalis), which is growing right down the road from our neighborhood. So now it's time to make more paper. I need to have 10 good pieces of paper onto which I can transfer 10 shadow images for the September exhibit in Japan. The finished pieces need to arrive in Shiga by mid-August, so I have a lot of work ahead of me!