Life With An Iris
Edge of Night/Intimate Abstractions
An abstract photograph of an iris.
Let me tell you about my experience with one of the most frustrating flowers I ever photographed and why, in the end, these are now some of my favorite images.
The iris was one of the flowers I always found to be the hardest to capture an abstraction of was an iris. I swear, I was mesmerized by the iris because I kept buying them over and over, thinking this time I will get it, I know that this will be the time. And each and every time I bought them I was disappointed again and again. It felt the flower just wasn’t ready to share its secrets with me. I found it so frustrating but still, for some reason, I continued picking them up now and then.
Finally, near the end of my time at graduate school, I picked up yet another bunch of beautiful purple irises. Honestly, after buying the same type of flower for around two years and it not working I am not sure why I kept buying them. I guess I saw it as a challenge and I wasn't going to let it beat me! Well, this time I was thrilled with the results that I got from that session! I remember that awesome feeling of accomplishment and how overjoyed I was to have finally captured that image!
These are now some of my favorite images because of how hard I worked to get them. It taught me to keep trying and to not give up when things were hard or not working at all.
I have a confession though, I haven't picked up another iris since then and as I write this I now feel guilty...maybe the iris has even more planned for me to photograph. I guess I need to take a look at them again soon on a flower shopping trip!!
