From little seeds…
The fresh colours of this sycamore seed caught my eye, blown prematurely from the tree by, no doubt, the winds we’ve had these past few days.
I often pick things up when out to photograph later. I prefer the control when shooting in the studio. Not that’s it’s a complicated setup – usually natural light on a plain background, and often just using an app on my iPhone to shoot with. I have some favourite presets in the app that give me the look that I’m after without spending hours post-processing on the computer after the event.
Picking up the seed reminded me of an image of falling sycamore seeds I had seen many years ago. I remember it vividly although not seen since; a dramatic shot looking up into a storm of seeds raining down with the blue sky as the background. I’ve rediscovered it after a bit of internet research: ‘Falling’ is a series of photographs taken in 2005 by Neeta Madahar, along with a 13 minute video animation. I’ve just watched the video, and it is truly mesmerizing.
Not long after I moved into my first studio I attempted something similar whilst shooting one of my ‘Reconstructed Nature’ series of images. I must have also had the seeds image in mind at the time.
After a number of failed attempts at capturing the seeds in one shot, plus, I was getting fed up of having to keep picking them up from all over the studio, the finished piece ended up as a composite of several of the shots of the falling seeds.
Thanks for your interest in my work.
