Like you, I have many memories linked with flowers such that seeing a mere photo of flowers transports me across space and time. When I see roses, I think of the love I have lost, the love I have received, and the love I have given to others. When I see a tall sunflower, it always reminds me of barbeques and the end of summer. And when I see a field of lavender, I immediately desire to travel to France and eat chocolate croissants…despite the fact that I know how to make them myself (I am a former, trained-in-Paris pastry chef…yet that is a whole other bio).

I relish being surrounded by the aloha spirit of the Hawaiian Islands. And I love waking up on the Big Island and smelling the fragrant blossoms that surround my home. Each flower has a story to tell with its unique shape, vivid colors, and how it dances with the trade winds.  

To me, everything about all flowers is awe-inspiring and I have been their faithful admirer since I was very young and got my first whiff of a lilac.  I often get asked if I have a favorite flower. Yet how can you possibly choose just ONE kind?  

To my dominant right-brainer mind, they are all beautiful and a blessing to any human who is willing to stop and admire them in all their glory, even as their bloom is fading.

Simply take a moment to watch the bees and butterflies circle round and delicately alight to drink a flower’s nectar and pollinate flowering fruit trees and veggies to help us humans thrive on this planet. Oh, and did I mention the honey that the bees create which is basically an amalgamation or smorgasbord of nectar? Double YUM!!

In ordinary days, when we are in love, or even when we are experiencing grief, flowers speak to our souls in a way that only Nature can…providing a soothing balm for our eyes, a perfume for our noses’ enjoyment, a tactile experience for our hands, and a delicacy for our mouths with edible flowers and honey. 

And while scientists have not yet been able to prove that stroking the silky petals of any flower lowers our blood pressure, flowers do have a calming effect, as does simply walking in a forest or sitting in a garden.  Such easy and grace-filled ways to slow down, reduce our stress and cortisol levels, and rebalance our energy.

In my lifetime, I have visited many botanical parks and gardens. One of my personal favorites being Filoli Gardens in California.  I like to imagine a world where everyone is sitting in flower-filled gardens or simply growing flowers for personal enjoyment or to share with others.  This Earth we live on is a far richer place with flowers 😊

After a 30-year hiatus, I have recently returned to taking pictures with a professional camera.  I was used to dropping ISO film in a camera, checking my light meter, focusing my lens, taking photos, sending my roll of film off to be developed, and then waiting two weeks to see what I’d actually captured. I even had an Ansel Adams phase where I was into black and white photography and spent many an hour developing in a darkroom.

Luckily, there have been advances in technology and you can view your images immediately, even altering them right on your cell phone to share with others. 

How do I get my images to look so radiant?  I like to shoot images on black acrylic or in dark infinity pools with a black background.  And while Nature cannot really be improved upon, I have been adding food dyes into flowers to see the effect it has…most of which I’ve seen in orchids.  I am open to exploring creative possibilities and am simply doing what I can to transform ordinary images into extraordinary images.

With all their bells and whistles, I am still learning how to use my Z7II, and I am just getting up to speed with Lightroom Classic.  Plus, I can do a few things in Photoshop like make an image’s background black and white (see my Birds of Paradise) or create a composite of a flower with a different photo layer below it (see my Water Lily Lava series). 

Most of my images, I digitally make adjustments to hue, vibrance, and saturation, often taking one flower and turning it into multiple-colored photos…very Andy Warholesque.  Massaging my images that way has even created different colors of flowers not seen in nature (see my Kona Plumeria series). Yet the true icing on the cake is printing the photos on aluminum with the dye sublimation process is what really makes the images pop and stand out.

I have only just begun. I have hundreds of photos yet to edit and I have all these creative ideas in my mind that I have yet to manifest into reality.  I hope you will come along with me on this photographic adventure and enjoy the views along the way. 

Want to talk about flowers with me in person?  Then come to Hawaii and join me at the market in Keauhou on Wednesdays at the Outrigger 9-2 pm.  I’d love to hear if you have a favorite flower. We can even chat about food if you are a fellow foodie.

Ready to pick some flowers?  Click here.