Category: Floral Photography

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Showing Rose Photographs

showing rose photographs
This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Showing Photographs at Rose Shows

Showing Rose Photographs in Rose Shows – Cost Effective Mounting and Matting How-To

Especially for my friends in roses: those who already show photographs in rose shows, and especially those who would like to but haven’t yet because they think it is too expensive.

FREE pdf that you may download, share, print, link to, etc. I wrote this to be freely shared:

HOW TO MOUNT AND MAT_for new pdf 04102016

For those who would prefer the information in a Kindle format, readable on any device with the free Kindle app, it is $0.99, the minimum price Amazon allows:

Many readers here know that while my interests have grown in many directions, digital photography for me began with roses. I purchased my first digital camera, a little Nikon Coolpix, in 2004 to have a light weight camera that would fit in my purse to take to rose shows that I judged. When that camera died – I wore it out! – in 2008, I bought a Canon G9, a compact digital with many manual controls and RAW capabilities. I had to take a class, “How to Use Your Digital Camera,” to learn how to use that camera and also the software necessary to process RAW files. One thing led to another, and in the end, I did the entire photography program and also picked up a certificate in Web Design. When I outgrew the G9, I got a Canon 5D. I now use a Canon 5D Mark II.

In the spring of 2008, I began thinking about and working on photography in rose shows. In 2009 I was appointed the first Photography Chair of the PSWD of the American Rose Society, and in my three-year tenure wrote Guidelines for Judging Rose Photographs for shows in the District. I was intimately familiar with “growing pains” in this district with respect to the new discipline in rose shows.

In 2012, Curtis Aumiller was appointed the first Photography Chairman for the American Rose Society, and I have been honored to work with him and the wonderful committee he put together to develop rose photography at the national level. With a lot of hard work, national guidelines were approved by the ARS Board in September of 2015. It felt like birthing a baby. As any parent knows, the really hard work lies in nurturing and raising that baby to maturity. That’s where we are now, in my opinion. I’ve gotten the sense that one obstacle to be overcome is a perception that showing photographs in rose shows is very expensive because of the mounting and matting specifications. While it is true that dry mounting and double matting a photograph can be expensive, that is not what is required for rose shows. Photos need to be mounted in some manner to a backing board and then matted. Specified dimensions are 11×14 in on the outside, with images ranging between 5×7 to 8×10.

Shows last a day or two. These images are not intended for sale. They are lovely images, but not intended for gallery shows. The purpose of the mounting and matting requirement is to standardize the display; to make it possible to display the images; and to separate one image from another by the use of mat to give focus and visual weight to the separate images. Here in the PSWD, the last time I judged photographs laid on a table and unmatted was in 2008. Once people saw the beautiful displays that mounting and matting gave, that approach is what was used. But nationally, this is something of a new concept.

The first rose show season after adoption of the national Guidelines for Judging Rose Photography is just getting underway. The anthropologist in me sees this first year as a critical time. The Ob/Gyn in me asks, “What does this baby need to thrive?” The answer, of course, is, like all newborns, “a lot of things.” I am seeing those things come from many people, including ARS President Pat Shanley and the wonderful photography committee members. Our Chairman is the one who “gets paid the big bucks” – not true; totally voluntary job, often with little thanks – to handle the growing pains of this new discipline in our shows. I have a very positive feeling it is all going to work!

I woke up this past Friday morning wondering what I could be contributing. I decided to do a Power Point presentation showing how easily and inexpensively rose photographs could be mounted and matted to meet the specifications of the Guidelines. Once I finished that, I decided to also convert it to a pdf so it could easily be shared. Some of you saw that version on Facebook. There was such a good response, I decided I really needed to do a cleaner version in Word and then convert that to a pdf. I got that done by early Sunday afternoon. That version is the link posted just below, as well as at the beginning of this post. That pdf may be downloaded and shared. The link may be posted on websites and in newsletters. I want people to know that displaying their rose images in a rose show is not complicated and it need not be expensive. This is how I show my rose images in rose shows.

HOW TO MOUNT AND MAT_for new pdf 04102016

By the time I got to that point, my three day weekend had pretty much been consumed. I’m familiar with how to publish Kindle e-books, and given the work I had already done, I knew it would not be hard.

The pdf information will be gotten out and around to a variety of places this year. What about next year, or the year after? I decided Amazon is a pretty good repository for information, easily accessible by anyone anywhere. Amazon requires a minimum list price of $0.99 USD for an e-book, so the Kindle version is not free as the pdf is, but it is as close to free as I could make it on a Kindle platform at Amazon.
The result is this:

How to Mount and Mat an 8×10 Photo for Rose Shows

I hope this information will be helpful to people who already show rose photographs, and especially to those who have considered showing rose photographs in our shows but who need a little encouragement and an explanation and guide of “how to.”

Wishing you good light and beautiful roses ~ Susan

showing rose photographs
Rose ‘Gemini’

Slideshow of Some Rose Photographs

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2015 ANMPAS

2015 ANMPAS – Annual New Mexico Photographic Arts Show

2015 ANMPAS, the Annual New Mexico Photographic Arts Show, will once again be held in the Fine Arts Building at EXPO NM. It is open to the public December 6 through December 27, 10:00am – 5:00pm, except December 24 and 25. The show is free to the public throughout. Some days, particularly the weekends, EXPO may charge a parking fee. The opening reception is December 5, from 2:00-4:00pm.

This is a juried show, and artists participating must be residents of New Mexico. All artwork is for sale, and may be taken by the buyer at the time of sale.

I have enjoyed participating in ANMPAS and the related InSight shows over the years. These are the brainchild of organizer LeRoy Perea, who has watched the submitted entries grow in both quantity and quality over the years.

I am thrilled that for 2015 ANMPAS, the jurors selected three images from my series, Persephone.

Those of you who have followed me very long know that sunflowers are frequent photographic subjects for me, as are butterflies. I grew these sunflowers, and they are from the second crop of 2015. I really liked the structure of the sunflower plant in the “Heart of the Matter.” My son appreciates structure, especially in black and white images, and I converted the image immediately.

2015 ANMPAS
Sunflower in Black and White

My son liked it as much as I had hoped.

I showed that image to a friend, Jim Stallings, with whom I have corresponded over the past couple of years and whose input has influenced some other photographic work, such as “The Observer/The Observed,” which I decided to show after Jim wrote a short poem. He wrote in the context of activities of autumn, after seeing the sunflower image:

…it is that ancient mythic time for the daughter Persephone of the Earth Goddess Demeter to return to the Underworld and stay there until the return for Spring. So all that feeds into the unconscious…the separation of between life on the surface of the world of fall and winter and waning and yet returning light and another go at renewal and new life. It must be motivating in your photographic subjects as well.

It is true that my fall images, even of bright flowers, tend to be dark.

I had not read mythology in a long time. As I read some of the stories of Persephone, I was struck by the fact that she did not seem to be constantly miserable in her months in the dark Underworld with her husband, Hades, who had first abducted Persephone with the permission of her father, Zeus. Mythology is full of plots and subplots, but I decided to create this particular series using some of my favorite subjects – flowers and butterflies – around the theme of hope in a dark spot.

Butterflies have multiple meanings to me. They are a symbol for Systemic Lupus Erythematosus – “lupus” – an autoimmune chronic disease with multiple manifestations, with treatments but no known cure. One of the manifestations for some people is the so-called “butterfly rash,” and thus, the butterfly as a symbol.

The particular butterflies I chose to use in this series have special meaning to me. The butterfly in “Heart of the Matter” is a tiny hair streak butterfly photographed at the Corrales home of friends Tim and Laurie Price: special friends, special place, special day. People who have brought hope to some of my dark places… The butterfly in “Awakening” is a glass wing butterfly photographed at the Albuquerque BioPark. The butterfly in “Emerged” is a red lacewing photographed at the Tucson Botanical Gardens.

I was asked to write a brief description of “Heart of the Matter:”

Persephone, goddess of Spring, was abducted by Hades to become his wife in the Underworld. Her mother, Demeter, goddess of the Earth and of the Harvest, in her anger and grief, caused the earth to go barren in her daughter’s absence, our dark winter months, and to bloom again upon her return in spring. This series is about the annual descent into the underworld of the darkness of Winter and rebirth into the light of Spring. “Heart of the Matter” represents the potential for rebirth – from any dark situation – in the developing bud (the heart) of the sunflower, and in the butterfly (with its heart shape), showing the strength, delicacy, and light of hope.

2015 ANMPAS
Heart of the Matter, from the series, Persephone
2015 ANMPAS
Awakening, from the series, Persephone
2015 ANMPAS
Emerged, from the series, Persephone

I have been asked whether there will be more in this series. Persephone’s story is one full of plots and subplots, all very stimulating for this photographer. These particular three, tell one of the stories I wanted to tell. There are many more I look forward to telling visually, but I do not anticipate black and white sunflowers with colorful butterflies as the vehicles of the next set or sets.

The Persephone series that will be shown at 2015 ANMPAS means much to me on a very personal level, and I thank LeRoy Perea and the 2015 jurors for selecting these three images for the 2015 show. I hope those of you in the Albuquerque area will come out for the show in December.

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UNM Digital Photography Exhibit

UNM Digital Photography Exhibit, Now Through the End of July

UNM Digital Photography Exhibit, arranged by the Digital Arts Program on the Continuing Education Campus, is up and open to the public from now through the end of July. It is in the Conference Center, the North Building.

Participants in the UNM Digital Photography Exhibit include the digital photography instructors, advanced students in the program, and graduates of the program (that would be me, 2009).

The UNM Digital Photography Exhibit is not a juried exhibit. Participants were invited to bring whatever pieces of their work they wanted to show.

The three pieces of mine that I chose have all been in juried shows. Although not intentional at the time of selection, I realized later the pieces represent a sort of developmental scheme.

‘Lily’

UNM digital photography exhibit
Lily; printed on fine art water color paper

This image was made in 2009 with a Canon G9, a somewhat advanced but still a point-and-shoot camera. To date, this is my most awarded image. It was juried into the International Biennial Exhibition of Fine Art and Documentary Photography at The Borges Cultural Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from January 19th through February 27th, 2010. It was also juried into the Corrales Fine Arts Show here in New Mexico. It was awarded “1st Place – Outstanding Achievement” in Still Life at the 8th Annual Black and White Spider Awards. It was awarded the Bronze Medal, 3rd Place in Nature-Flowers at the 2012 Paris Photo Prize, along with 3rd place for People’s Choice Award. Again, this was an early piece done with a point-and-shoot camera. The piece has special meaning because my mother grew the lily, and held a white background for me as the light was quickly fading in her garden.

‘Gathering Storm’

UNM Digital Photography Exhibit
‘Gathering Storm,’ printed on true Black and White paper

This image is from a trip to the Jemez Mountains here in New Mexico over Autumnal Equinox weekend in 2013. Everything about that entire weekend was full of the magic for which New Mexico is known. This was at the very beginning of the trip. I had planned to photograph this church before I even left home. My traveling companions could not understand why I would even bother to stop to photograph it! I just wanted to! By this time I had moved up to a Canon full frame dSLR. This image was juried into the Corrales Fine Arts Show as well as the Annual New Mexico Photographic Art Show.

‘The Observer/The Observed’

UNM Digital Photography Exhibit
‘The Observer/The Observed,’ giclee print on fine art canvas

This image was created this year, and of the ones in this post, has the most meaning to me. Many of you know my son was diagnosed with leukemia over Thanksgiving weekend (he is now in remission and doing quite well, I’m happy to say), and this was done as I was trying to make sense of all that was happening. In mythology of some Native Americans, Crow is a messenger between worlds, as well as a trickster who can steal light from the sky (the sun) and carry it to people who need it. I rarely see crows in my yard, and this one stayed just long enough for this image. Editing it to show what I wanted to show took a long time; it also took my mind off a lot of things; and was the most creative thing I had done after my son was diagnosed. I had not intended to show it; I did the work strictly for me. But Jim Stallings, fellow anthropologist, writer, and friend wrote a poem about it as a gift to me and my family in those dark days of winter:

Spontaneous Poem from a Treetop Crow

In the lofty life of a wise old crow
Swaying in the topmost backyard branches
Like a magical clock counting down mortality’s coil,
May it not be in some secret way
We the awed observers
Have all along been honored by a wiser watcher?

– Jim Stallings

Jim’s poem encouraged me to enter the image, and it was juried into the 2015 InSight New Mexico show, “Through Her Eyes,” held in April. (It has also been juried into another show, to be held in July – more about that in a different post).

I invite my friends in the Albuquerque area, as well as friends who will be passing through Albuquerque between now and the end of July, to stop by the Conference Center on the UNM CE campus (Indian School and University) and see the UNM Digital Photography Exhibit, with works by the digital photography instructors, advanced students, and graduates of the digital photography program.

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Amaryllis

through her eyes
Amaryllis

Amaryllis is a beloved bulb that blooms indoors in the winter and out of doors in spring and summer in warm climates. Amaryllis can be flashy, bringing bright colors during dismal winter weather.

amaryllis
Brightly colored amaryllis in the middle of winter

At this time of the year here in Albuquerque, ground covers and lawns tend to be brown, and the trees are leafless. Today the sun is shining brightly, and the sky is the deep turquoise for which New Mexico is known (and loved!), but it will be weeks yet before there are colorful blooms in the landscape.

Flowering bulbs are frequently given as Christmas gifts, bringing as they do indoor cheer in the middle of winter. The cheery red of this one shows why they are loved as indoor plants.

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More Roses

roses Dr Huey
Rose Photograph Blue Ribbon Winners from ARS 2014 Fall National Convention

Roses are the focus of American Rose Society conventions: rose specimens, rose arrangements, and increasingly, rose photographs. The 2014 Fall National Convention featured a competition of rose photography. The results of the competition have recently been posted on the website of the ARS.

I had known that my photograph of ‘Dream Weaver’ had won Queen (equivalent of Best of Show) and that my Creative Interpretation image of ‘Gemini’ had won King (equivalent of Runner Up to Best in Show). Until I received the ribbons in the mail last week, I did not know that ‘Child’s Play’ had been awarded best in section for Fully Open Roses, nor that my image of hips of ‘YoYo’ had been awarded best in section for Rose Potpourri. I will show those images in a later post.

I was surprised and pleased with how many of my images had been awarded Blue Ribbons. The images in this post are the Blue Ribbon winners.

roses Gemini
‘Gemini’
Hybrid tea, exhibition form

roses Glowing Amber
Miniature Rose Glowing Amber
Exhibition Form

‘Glowing Amber’ is an interesting little rose. It has distinctive reflex petals, with a red upper and yellow reverse. There are stories that the hybridizer complained that photographers never captured the brilliant colors of this little gem. I did not hear any complaints about the color in this image. 🙂

roses child's play
Miniature Rose ‘Child’s Play’
Exhibition form
roses foolish pleasure
Spray of Miniature Rose, ‘Foolish Pleasure’
roses gemini
Fully Open, Stamens Showing
Hybrid tea, ‘Gemini’
roses mermaid
Old Garden Rose 1918
Hybrid bracteata, ‘Mermaid’

This image of ‘Mermaid,’ one of my favorite roses, appeared on the cover of the 2014 Rose Annual:

roses Mermaid
‘Mermaid’ on Front Cover of 2014 Rose Annual
roses Dr Huey
Rose ‘Dr. Huey’ in Rose Potpourri. Photo taken on the First Annual Dr. Huey Tour of the Corrales Rose Society

Dr. Huey is often used as the root stock onto which to graft other roses grown for their blooms. It can get very, very large!

My image of ‘Gemini’ entered in Creative Interpretation was awarded King of the show, but I had two additional Blue Ribbons in that class.

roses Leonidas
Hybrid tea, ‘Leonidas,’ in Black and White.
roses veterans honor
Hybrid tea, ‘Veterans’ Honor’

With Albuquerque under a Winter Storm Watch from this evening through tomorrow evening, and with this morning dawning dark and gray, this seemed like a good time to enjoy the beautiful roses and colors of summer. Please enjoy!

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Celebrating 2015

celebrating
Celebrating 2015

Happy New Year!

celebrating
Cosmos, still seemingly dancing in 2015!

This little cosmos seems to still be dancing in the New Year, 2015!

Wishing everyone a very happy 2015, filled with health and happiness (and, a little later in the year, more flowers of all varieties). And beautiful sunsets and sunrises; magnificent vistas; marvelous historic structures; cute animals; wonderful people; and all the things that make us celebrate life!

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Summer Colors

Summer colors
Summer Colors
Summer colors
From The Postcard Series,
Colors of Summer: Cosmos

On the eve of Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, and the beginning of Winter, a reminder of some of the colors of Summer.

This is cosmos, an easy-to-grow flower that brought brightness and joy all summer long, into fall.

The image is part of The Postcard Series.

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ANMPAS 2014

ANMPAS 2014
ANMPAS – Annual New Mexico Photographic Art Show, 2014

ANMPAS 2014, the Annual New Mexico Photographic Art Show, will be open to the public this year beginning December 7 and running through December 29. Hours are 10-5 daily. The show will be closed on Tuesdays, as well as December 24 and 25. The opening reception will be on December 6.

This juried photography show, organized by LeRoy Perea, has become a yearly photographic event widely anticipated in the art community for the month of December. It is held in the Fine Arts Building at EXPO NM. There is no charge for admission to the show itself. EXPO NM does charge for parking, however. There is parking directly across the street from the Fine Arts Building, making it quite convenient, even on cold winter days.

All photographs in the show are matted and framed in accordance with this show’s specifications, and all are available for purchase.

My entry in ANMPAS 2014 is “Fibonacci Sequence – Sunflower.”

ANMPAS 2014
Fibonacci Sequence – Sunflower

For a quick view of the Fibonacci Sequence and its occurrence in nature, check this link or this link.

Future posts will have more about this fascinating sequence of numbers and its occurrence in nature.

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Floral Photography

floral photography lily
Floral Photography: Some Awarded Non-Rose Images

Floral photography has become one of my major photographic interests in the years I have been doing digital photography. Over the next several weeks, I will be introducing images from a new floral series. Before introducing the new floral series, and before the opening of the 2014 Annual New Mexico Photographic Arts Show (ANMPAS) next weekend, I would like to show (once again for some of you, but new to some readers here) some awarded floral images from the past.

This month (November 2014) you have seen a range of my rose photographs from this year. The rose photographs tend to be done differently from the way I do other floral images. For our rose shows, the images need to combine the important aspects used to judge a rose presented in some artistic way. Sometimes combining two such different approaches is about as easy as mixing oil and water. It is what it is. I enjoy the challenge and the opportunity to show roses in their best light as viewed by ARS Accredited Judges.

In this post, you will see floral images done somewhat differently from most of the rose images.

“Lily” is my most awarded floral image to date. It was awarded 1st place – Outstanding Achievement in Still Life in the 8th Annual Spider Black and White Awards.

floral photography lily
Lily, multiply awarded floral photograph

It appeared in the Winners Issue of the Black and White Spider Awards Journal, Volume 3.

This image was also awarded Bronze (Third Place) in the 2012 Prix de la Photographie, Paris (Px3), Paris Photo Competition.

Additionally, the image received Third Place in the People’s Choice Award at the 2012 Prix de la Photographie, Paris (Px3).

The image “Lily” was also shown at the 2012 Corrales Fine Arts Show, a juried exhibition.

Of note, this floral photography image was created with a point-and-shoot digital camera, albeit with some good manual controls and RAW capabilities, the Canon G9, in 2009. My mother grew the lily. I was trying to photograph it one evening in rapidly fading light, and the background was quite cluttered. My mom ran into the house and got a background she used in her floral arrangements, and held it so I could create an uncluttered image. One of my few images with an assistant. 🙂 The point of this paragraph is that it is not the camera, but what you do with it.

Back to Blue is a series of floral images I created late summer and early fall of 2013, and called “The Blues.” Done in shades of blue, the reference was as much to emotion and mood as to color.

Two images from that series of floral photography have been recognized.

back to blue
Starting Over – Bud of Sacred Datura

“The Blues: Starting Over” was selected by Juror Stephen Perloff as Third Place Winner in the New York Center for Photographic Art “Primary Colors” competition.

This image was exhibited in New York City from May 6 – 17, 2014. I was pleased to have this image shown in New York City. Many thanks to the New York Center for Photographic Art and to Stephen Perloff!

Another image from the series, “The Blues,” Ephemeral, was chosen as a Nominee in the 7th Annual Photography Masters Cup:

back to blue
Ephemeral – Fully open datura flower

This is a fully open datura flower. These open at sunset, and began to fade at the first light of morning. The plants themselves are quite hardy, but the flowers truly are fleeting – and very beautiful.

These were my two favorite images from the series, and having them recognized in two very different venues brings me a great deal of pleasure. I am happy for the opportunity to share them again, although my current work seems to be dominated by bright colors and bold designs.

In the 2013 Px3 competition, my series “Flowers of Early Spring” was awarded Second Place in the People’s Choice Awards in Nature-Seasons.

floral photography
Flowers of Early Spring – Iris
Floral photography
Flowers of Early Spring – Redbud
floral photography
Flowers of Early Spring
floral photography
Flowers of Early Spring – Apple Blossoms
Floral Photography
Flowers of Early Spring – Pansy

Floral photography – always a challenge, and often quite rewarding.

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