Tulip Altered Art

This image is of a tulip taken at the National Arboretum in Washington DC last spring. I thought the colors looked beautiful, almost like a painting. In working with the image, I decided to isolate the colors of the single flower in the center and enhance it to look like a watercolor painting. The black and white flowers in the background are left as a photograph to provide contrast in both color and texture. The final image is most striking when printed on metallic photograph paper. I offer this image in my shop as a limited edition ACEO - I will only make 24 of these and then there will be no more!

Here is the original image:




Here is the altered image:

Texas Sunflowers

Our trip to the Hill Country of Texas for the family reunion last weekend was a lot of fun. While were were driving on Hwy 90 west of San Antonio, we came across a beautiful field of sunflowers. Of course, I had to stop for a quick little photo shoot. I think the pictures came out great. I put them together as a notecard set in my shop. Here are my favorite pictures that I got:

Note Card Set

I finally decided to list some of my note cards as a set. I had them listed individually for $2 each and decided to go for a set of 6 for $10. I chose 6 of my favorite flower pictures - they are very bright and happy. Anyone who buys it is free to choose whatever images they prefer or multiples of the same image. Here are the ones that I chose:

* Floating Flowers

* Coral Tree in the Sky


* Orange Flowers

* Daisies

* Lotus Flower


* Hyde Park Tulips

Orange Flowers in Singapore

Most of the time, pictures do not have a dramatic story behind them but just result from finding a small slice of beauty in everyday life. This is one of those pictures, and I have many many more with a similar background. In this particular case, Wes and I were walking through Singapore in October of last year. It is a very urban city, much like Hong Kong, but there was a good amount of landscaping to keep things looking nice. These orange flowers were a bush in the landscaping just up the road from the statue of Raffles. It caught my eye so I had to stop and take a photo.

Oma's Garden

My grandmother turned 104 last month and is still doing very well. She has always loved gardening, a passion that was strongly picked up by my mother and that my sister and I are trying to carry on. Even though she has people come care for the garden these days (under supervision, of course), the garden still reflects her influence. When I was visiting there in June of last year, the garden still looked beautiful even though the winter was coming on and there was a serious drought. I was impressed by the wide variety of blooms that were there - there are more photos to come in this series!

Floating Flowers Note Card

This photo has a much less inspiring history. For Chinese New Year in 2007, Wes and I went to Siem Reap, Cambodia, to visit Angkor Wat and the surrounding temple complex. It was a wonderful trip - I am sure many of the photographs will be here soon. In our hotel's restaurant, there was a large container of floating flowers the entire time we were there. I could not say with certainty what they are, but I thought they looked pretty neat so I took this photo on our last day there.

Our first listing

The first picture I chose to put up on the shop is of a lotus flower in the garden of a monastery outside of Hue, Vietnam in September 2007. We visited the monastery after spending the day on a motor bike tour of the countryside surrounding Hue. The weather was perfect and the pond full of lotus flowers was a center point of the tranquil garden. On the way to the garden, we passed by young apprentice monks doing their studies inside.

I am not sure what thoughts this image inspires in you, but for me it conjures memories of that day and the feeling of peace and tranquility of the quiet garden.