I’m 58 now and don’t feel (or act) much different than when I was 5, especially when it comes to the excitement of that first snowfall of the winter. I love to get bundled up and walk around our amazingly beautiful village of Langley (Whidbey Island, WA). One of my favorite parts of snow days is hunkering down in the quiet of my studio, light a fire, put on some quiet music, garb my camera (an extension of my eyes) and lose myself within a flower. I call this ‘the dance.’

When I say lose myself – I mean totally and absolutely in the zone! I shut off all the lights, turn up the music, place my flower(s) in a bud vase surrounded by black cloth backdrops, set up my camera on a sturdy tripod, screw in a macro (extreme close up) lens, grab a small handheld reading (led) light and drop deep into the zone. Me and the flower – that’s it. We dance, sometimes for hours with one single flower. Funny, I am scared to death to dance with Sandy, my honey, but feel right at home with my flowers.

This particular ‘dance’ took place over two wonderful days. I experimented with flame – specifically a handheld candle flame as the only source of light from behind the flower. Low light results in very long exposures – this is where the dance term originated – as the shutter is open, sometimes as long as 30 seconds, I carefully move around the flower with my light/candle, all the while watching the effect on the final image. Then the shutter closes and I can see the magical nuance of each flicker on the final image. For some of the these final fire-flower images, I repeated this dance dozens of time to get it ‘just right.’ Being a perfectionist, obsessive compulsive has it drawbacks but in my final work, I consider it an asset. I hope you do.

Thanks for visiting.

Louie

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