Human Flower Project

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Shooting Wildflowers

Photographers reminisce about the bloom of spring 2005 and dream of a “love affair” with monkeyflower.

Photo: CJ Lewis and Richard A. Lewis

“Take only pictures, leave only footprints,” counseled Smokey the Bear. But for true wildlife devotees, “only” treads out miles of hiking-boot-prints and captures thousands of photographs, especially in a banner wildflower year like this one.

Thanks to Robin Flinchum for interviewing three zealous wildflower photographers, Lara Hartley and Rich and CJ Lewis. Most articles of this sort concentrate on depth of field and light conditions. Flinchum, instead, tried to get at the photographers’ motivations and feelings.

Brown-eyed primrose at night, Death Valley
Lara Hartley

“It seems to me that flowers have this inner world that is unseen by most people,” said Hartley of Barstow, California. “The smallest and commonest flowers that go mostly ignored have intricate, intimate lives where tiny things live and die.”

The Lewises, aerospace engineers, find excitement in the brief lives of flowers. Says Rich, “The flowers you see today may be gone tomorrow and may not emerge again for many, many seasons. The more wildflowers I saw, the more I was drawn back to them with a dramatic sense of urgency.”

He describes a solo shoot in the Panamints and Wildrose Canyon when he was “physically moved to tears…. I was blessed to have located many rare and exotic wildflowers such as the Mojave Monkeyflower, Lilac Sunbonnets, Desert Candles, Prickly Poppy, and the giant Panamint Daisies all in the same day. There were wildflowers in bloom as far as the eye could see. The sweet smell of the blooming wildflowers was amazing. I’ll never forget that run.”

Hartley says she usually sets out to find a particular species in bloom: ““Having a project, or several about wildflowers going, gives me great reasons and places to go with a purpose instead of aimless wandering,” she says. But once she gets down on her knees among the wild plants, “Every flower is my favorite when I’m shooting it…It’s like being in love.”

Mojave prickly pear, Ord Mountains
Lara Hartley

The three photographers swap images and thoughts with others on several websites. Hartley posts her work and photography tips at the Victor Valley Daily Press website. They all contribute to this Death Valley site, and the Lewises are working on a “western wildflowers” online archive.

But what seems to drive all of these photographers is less the finished picture than the immediacy and wonder of being there, alive among the living flowers. Thanks to Robin Flinchum for capturing that:

“There is a great deal of peace in my life when I am photographing wildflowers,” Hartley said. “All is right with my world because I feel I have been given the gift of seeing them.”

(Special thanks to Lara Hartley for floral and other insights.)