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An American Lotus in Poppelsdorf

Botanische Gärten der Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn

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A Lotus flower illuminated by an off camera flash, photographed in The Botanische Gärten der Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn ( Love that name). This Lotus flower seems to be illuminating the surrounding picture, like a lamp/ A very pleasing effect of the flash defusing through the petals. My pictures are all underexposed and then relit with an off camera flash. I hope to achieve a very theatrical form of image that works towards the narrative light used in the history of Western Art. This light play can be literal or suggested. I think as much of portraiture in the 16th-18th centuries as I do stage and film. Of course the later have played an important part in the development of my visual literacy. I feel my pictures are pretty hard to define but are at their best when printed. They need time, they need a certain amount of art historical knowledge. This makes it quite tricky for myself when it comes to definition. Typical me. On the plus side, they are very beautiful so for many viewers it can rest at that. I had photographed this very flower head 24 hours before when it was only partially open. I was contacted via Instagram by one of the garden staff who suggested that I should revisit, if I was still in Bonn? I was. I did and have now exhibited this picture no fewer than four times, in four different countries. There is such a mystical attribution to the lotus in eastern cultures. This species is western, a native of North America and was considered invasive, so cut back or farmed to a state where it is now on the endangered register. It was apparently distributed throughout the Americas by first nation peoples who carried the seeds as food. I always wanted to go back to America but I think I have grown out of that now.
January 10, 2025 at 9:49 PM