Red Flower, Many Layers

July 28, 2012 by 3 Comments
Layers of Petals

Red Flower Wearing Her Layers © 2012

While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we can see with our open eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see. ~ Dorothea Lange

The simple zinnia provides an interesting study of the pattern of petals. It reminds me of a velvety red circular staircase. (Maybe a staircase to heaven?)

Oops, my mind headed in a different direction with the vision of  Stairway to Heaven. How can you ignore the strains of one of the best songs ever, Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin. (And yes, I saw them in concert in 1975, second from the top row in the Chicago Stadium, However the YouTube clip is from a concert at Madison Square Gardens!)  I love the Zep enough to conquer any fear of heights or claustrophobia I may have had, and sat mesmerized through their sets.

Any other Led Zep fans out there? Especially from years of youth in the 1970s?

Isn’t it amazing how a simple red flower can send you on a trip through your memories?

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC  .She went on a trip down memory lane, all because of a photograph of the petal structure of a zinnia.

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Dahlia, Solarized

July 19, 2012 by 4 Comments
Dahlia, with Solarization © 2012 Bo Mackison

Dahlia, with Solarization © 2012 Bo Mackison

I look upon the pleasure which we take in a garden as one of the most innocent delights in human life… It gives us a great insight into the contrivance and wisdom of Nature, and suggest innumerable subjects for meditation.  ~ Cicero

This is an Esther dahlia after a photo session with s solarizer. Two summers ago I feel in love with Esther dahlia, as I familiarly call her now, seeing as she is one of my favorite flower friends. I captured her beauty in full bloom the first time I saw her, and then returned to the Olbrich Botanical Gardens many time later in the season to see what Esther was up to. I have photos when she is in a tight bud, just blooming, fully in bloom, beginning to lose her vigor, and finally the dahlia as only a few scattered petals on the brick walkway.

Solarization is a process in photography which the image on a print is reversed in tone. Dark is light or light is dark. I used a partial solarizing technique. The whites were once yellows and oranges, the dark areas were once sunny highlights shining through the open areas between the petals and the garden’s green background.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Today as she spends time indoors processing photos, Bo will look out the window and appreciate the cloudy skies and the rain soaked land.

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Roses on a Trellis

June 19, 2012 by 12 Comments
Old Fashioned Pink Roses on Trellis

Old Fashioned Pink Roses © 2012 Bo Mackison

Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray. ~ Rumi

I love planting the seeds of exploration. Looking at maps. Finding places that are unknown to me. Thinking I cannot go there, I do not know that place. Where would I stay? Who would I talk to?

Eventually I accept my fears, accept the anxiety that sometimes takes my breath away. I let myself be pulled by my unrelenting need to see anew, to satisfy my urge to explore, to follow my curiosity, and then to document what I see and experience with my camera and my journal.

I just decided to plan a new explore.

I have an incredibly hectic two weeks ahead of me. My son’s wedding is only ten days away. Soon there will be a houseful of relative. They are coming from the East Coast (my eldest lives within minutes of the Atlantic Ocean) and the West Coast (my sister-in-law and her spouse live within walking distance of the Pacific Ocean) and many geographical points in between — all eager to celebrate this joyous family occasion.

A few days after the wedding, Sherpa and I will head to Chicago for one of my biggest art fairs of the summer – a Thursday through Sunday affair at the Chicago Botanic Gardens.

And then I shall go on a solitary explore to a part of Wisconsin that I have yet to visit in the 33 years that I have been a resident here. More to follow. That’s a promise!

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.

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A Sea of Mystery

June 16, 2012 by 3 Comments
Pink Starlight

Pink and Orange Mystery © 2012 Bo Mackison

To create is to move into the unknown — to move into the mystery of yourself, to have feeling, to awaken buried perceptions, to be alive and free without worrying [what others think] about the results. ~ Michael Cassou

There is something about this garden plot of chives that brought forth my compulsion to change the humble purple orbs into a sea of pinks and oranges, waving blissfully with the tempo of the wind.

Chive flowers are such simply designed specimens of nature, and I take hundreds of photos of them.

What is it about chives? Their fringed edges? Their clumpiness — all squeezed together as if they are holding each other up? Their willingness to hold quite still, even with the wind about? Their slightly unkempt look, a bit tussled, a un-posed, natural look?

Some of my favorite photographs are ones I’ve taken of chives and then adapted so that the photo shows how I first saw the flowery fields. One of my clients’ all time favorites is also a row of chives, highly desaturated in post processing. People fall in love with the mood, the vintage look, and most have no idea they are praising the beauty of chive flowers.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Yesterday, she played with her photographs and her computer all day. Bo thinks it a wonderful thing when she can refer to what she does as both work and play!

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Leaves of Lettuce

May 31, 2012 by 3 Comments
Lotsa Lettuce

Leaves of Lettuce © 2012 Bo Mackison

“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.
You must travel it by yourself.
It is not far. It is within reach.
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know.
Perhaps it is everywhere – on water and land.”
~ Walt Whitman, from Leaves of Grass

Leaves of grass? Leaves of lettuce? Close…

I love this lettuce garden at Madison’s Olbrich Botanical Gardens. It’s not every lettuce bed that is planted so that it is garden art.

Yummy, too!

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Bo is busy in her studio, finishing last minute details for the beginning of her summer art fair season. Short blog post today, complete info about this weekend’s 57th Street Art Fair in Chicago tomorrow.

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