Red Campion
Oregon

20×24″ prints are $1,500
30×40″ prints are $3,000

In many of my photographs, I travel throughout the country, coming across many subjects that have photographic potential. While I may stay in a particular area for a few days or a few weeks, I’m limited in not being able to wait years for the right circumstances to come together to make any one particular subject shine as a worthwhile image.

However, at home it’s a different story. These are some of our own flowers, planted years ago by Carl and Theresa Freilinger, who owned our homesite and landscaped the incredibly beautiful grounds for 50 years. I watched these Campion flowers bloom each season for the past six years, always wanting to photograph them but never seeing the right image. Finally, in 2006, I was able to photograph this image. The flowers were at the peak of their season and the light was soft, with no wind. There was barely enough depth of field possible to make the image work and the exposure was about six seconds.

This is one of those images that I think is both simple and complex; classical and modern; highly specific and yet very abstract. The longer I study it, the more complex the image becomes and it reminds me of the complexity of organic life and the failure of our rational minds to categorize life into neat little boxes.