Poppy Composition © 2011 Bo Mackison

Seeing requires a return to the time before you had words, concepts, and definitions for everything.
~ David Hockney

The above quotation is more relevant to this photograph than it might initially appear. When I began to work with the RAW photo files of this flower, I knew its name. Poppy. And its color. A peachy-pink. Earlier this year I photographed a patch of poppies in a private Milwaukee garden and I’ve posted several of the finished photographs on this blog. I worked with composition in the first set of poppy photographs and I portrayed the flowers as one might see them in a garden setting.

With this photograph I also played with composition – half of the poppy isn’t even in the frame. I left it to everyone’s imagination to fill in the rest. We often need to only see a part to recognize the whole, and we know that this softly focused shape is, indeed, a flower.

The poppy is shown half hidden, focused in a soft haze. the main colors of the photo are complementary, colors that the human eye recognizes as working together, or harmonizing.

While I was subconsciously aware of these elements, I didn’t plan any of them. I did the photograph by feel, by experimentation. I wanted to capture the feel of the flowers, what I saw when I photographed them. No, I did not see this exact rendition of the poppy — partially hidden, softly focused. But I did capture how I “saw”this flower — the emotion of the flower, the experience of the flower.

I had difficulty when it came time to title this photograph. I got only as far as the obvious — Poppy. But I came to a quick stop when I tried to name the feeling that I had depicted in the poppy. Words, concepts, definitions — I had none.

Do you see the poppy and think of it in words or concepts, perhaps a description or an emotion? I would love to know if this poppy speaks to you. Share, if you wish, in the comments.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  Bo spent a thrillingly — is that a word? — exciting evening creating this poppy photograph. What a grand experience it was, the feeling of capturing in a photo what she saw when she saw the poppy in the garden.