CDScott Photography: Of Course It's Pretty; It's a Flower

I love photography and I love looking at other's photographic work. Like most art forms, there are types of photography I like and types I do not like. But even for the ones I do not like, be it due to subject matter or style, I can usually find something positive about the work.

There is one subject matter however that I never fully appreciated. Florals. I have never been moved by photos of flowers. My response to an image of a flower was usually, "of course it's pretty. It's a flower." I did not take pictures of flowers for that same reason. You could say the same thing of course about landscapes or other naturally beautiful scenes. But flowers just seemed like too much of a "gimme" subject matter. Easy. Like taking a picture of a really photogenic person, you can always get a good shot.

But I must be changing. Over the past year, I have found increasing numbers of flower images in my work. This was not a conscious plan; it just happened. And I have found that it's not as easy as I thought to get a beautiful, dramatic image of something already perfect. It's difficult to capture that grace and poise digitally.

I see this as a challenge now and on a recent trip to the Great Smoky Mountains tried again and again to capture the dainty drama that is a mountain wildflower.