Giverny

: Pressure, pressure…the sun was setting on this, the final eve of my second visit to Giverny. My stay was intensely spiritual and emotional and I wanted to create something truly spectacular. How my eyes found this nodding tulip along a back border in the immensity of blooms in Giverny, I’ll never know…but found it, I did! With tilted tripod and a Nikon close-up filter on my lens, I nearly touched the blossom. Using shallow depth-of-field, I was able to blow out the background of orange snapdragons (a special color in my life)…and fulfill my desire. Someone my work saw the image and spontaneously recited the Ungaretti poem, ‘M’illumino d’immenso’…and this image was named.

: Giverny was a creative awakening. I began to find beauty in blossoms past their prime. The petals of this particular tulip became translucent following rain and cold temperatures and I became infatuated with its luminescent tonality. Sensuous and voluptuous, it takes on a visual life beyond itself.

: This was the first morning of my very first visit to Giverny. Several days of rain and cold and wind preceded my arrival; and, while the rain had abated, the wind was blowing everything helter-skelter. I shivered and searched to begin creating. Filling my frame with reds, yellows and greens, I set my camera for a long exposure and recorded the movement of colors…dancing in unison…like paintbrush strokes covering a canvas.

: Monet said to look through objects to see something more pure…so I looked beyond the flower to see pure color…luscious color joyfully squeezed onto a palette in preparation for painting… Merging and mixing, these colors swished in my viewfinder. I was painting with my camera and advanced the captured impressions in the digital darkroom.

: This is an early experiment in the digital darkroom. After traveling the globe for decades, I ventured into cyber-space and with NIK software as my trusty compass, I was discovering a whole new realm…

: It may have been the flower that mad Monet become a painter and it may have been the flower that made me become the photographer I am. We were also both gardeners. Flowers are so small but provide such an abundant variety of color combinations. They are readily available and willing subjects…and like Georgia O’Keeffe, I want to make them big and bold so they will be noticed and admired.

: Upon spotting this cornflower, I immediately saw it as paintbrush…perfectly symbolic…as I am an artist who paints with her camera…and Monet designed his garden as Nature’s bountiful palette. I blew out the background to take on the appearance well-swished color following a productive painting session.

: Shooting with a narrow depth-of-field, I was able to provide this deliberately soft-focused purple allium with a blown out background of yellow-orange. Monet had said to look beyond the flower…and the flowers became my palette and the camera…my paintbrush.

: The trellises and arbors disturbed my visual field so I subdued them using NIK software to re-create my reality. I love the Japanese stitchery feel of this image. Monet was influenced by Japanese art and I had worked with fibers during my earlier years…funny how threads of the past come to the surface from time to time.

: Seeing Monet’s Japanese Bridge festooned with wisteria with my own eyes…standing on this illustrious bridge, peering into the pond…inhaling the atmosphere….feeling…being here was overwhelming beyond words. This bridge was inspiration for more than 250 of Monet’s paintings. When I returned to my studio I began creating several versions of the Bridge…and is but one.

: Many of my images, because they look like paintings, are printed on canvas. Ansel Adams collected his data in the field and created his vision in the darkroom…me too! When I look at my work on my mac I sometimes venture into the digital darkroom to create a new reality using Photoshop and NK software.

: I had purposely planned this third visit to Giverny in late July to see the water lilies in bloom…but Nature did not cooperate. A long cold winter and summer caused many blooming delays. Unable to photograph the water lily blossoms, I captured the bounty of lily pads…and have reason to return….as if I need one!

: I have always loved photographing reflections because water often takes on a painterly impression. Ever-changing light and atmospheric conditions continuously alter the reflections…and oftentimes people don’t realize the impact that light plays on the making of a photograph. The colors of this image are similar to many of Monet’s early paintings.

: Here is another of my pond reflections. Different day, different blooms, different light…Months later, while searching for examples of Monet’s paintings to include in a slide program I was presenting along with an exhibition of Monet and Me, I was daunted to find a similarity Monet’s later paintings when cataracts darkened his vision.

: From the pond the view of the blossoming cherry tree, le Cerisier du Japon, performs a visual duet with Monet’s house….the pinks, the patina of pollen on the rooftop, the chimney pots….what a splendid scene.

: The magic of Giverny extends beyond Monet’s garden and house. The entire village is a photogenic and gentle reminder that Monet resided here and the Impressionist Movement bloomed. Giverny is a very special place.

: This is another version of looking through the flower to transcend it and see pure color…luscious color joyfully squeezed onto a palette in preparation for painting… Merging and mixing, these colors swished in my viewfinder. I was painting with my camera and advanced the captured impressions in the digital darkroom.

: The Hotel Baudy is a popular restaurant in Giverny. Historically, it was a favorite meeting place of the Impressionists in and Monet had a studio there. The restaurant food is delicious and the grounds and studio are not to be missed.

: Everywhere I looked in Giverny I was mesmerized…and the images I created there daunted the folks back home. The Villager Magazine ran a three-page spread entitled Mesmerized by Monet and Creations Magazine featured this image a cover.

: At the Vernon village market a few miles from Giverny I spotted these endives in a crate with red and blue tissue and immediately thought…aha! The French flag!

: I continued to be enthralled by the beauty of spent blooms and examined the exposed centers of each tulip about to drop its petals in quest of an unblemished one. The symmetry and intensity of color captured my focus for this last hurrah. It symbolizes for me the power and magic of this special place. Monet first sighted Giverny on a train ride back to Paris and knew that this was the place he wanted his home…and the Impressionist Movement exploded here.