Horticulture Cover
I got an e-mail this afternoon from a gardener in Ontario, Oregon that I’d visited last month. She’d just received her Horticulture magazine for August. Jean wrote, “Got my issue of Horticulture yesterday and was reading it this afternoon and just now noticed your photo MADE THE COVER!!! Fantastic!! It’s a beauty too with the sweetbriar rose. … Congratulations on a lovely piece of photography with great distribution!”
I always like covers. They pay better than inside and are great showcases for my work. In this case, the photo was made in June 2004 while I was working on the wildflowers book. I found this sweetbriar rose along the road in the small town of Richland, Oregon. Richland is about halfway between Baker City and Halfway. The cover photo was the first frame I shot when I found the specimen plant. I continued shooting, and ultimately chose another version for my book.
When I’m photographing plants I almost always look for several different ways to see them. I aim to blend the art of photography with my knowledge of plants. Some photos lean more toward the art side and some more to the science, but I usually have both elements in mind while I’m working.
This is a mid-day photo. That’s not when I usually like to work, but the clear blue sky makes a nice clean background for the blossom. I shot with a 100mm macro lens on a Canon D60 digital camera. Its 6 megapixels were plenty for a full-page magazine reproduction.
If you’ve got the magazine, you’ll find more of my work filling pages 25 (gas plant) and 56 (Acer carpinifolium).