These Dame’s Rockets are an invasive species throughout the United States. They are a lovely rich flower that obviously grows in abundance, but that’s the problem. I photographed only one stalk here, and there is never just one stalk. They are Crowded together both on there stem, and their numbers Crowd in to take over small areas. This narrative serves as quite the contradiction to the simple beauty of the colors they display. I tried to relay both these sentiments with their placement in Flower Essences™ series.

From within the abundance of possible subjects, I found this one, which had almost every angle of  individual flowers from profile, partial side, straight on, and numerous variations in between. I then jammed as many as I could into a single frame, while allowing them to keep going beyond the shot’s edges. But even with the somewhat unsettling nature of this dense composition, I wanted to add the tension of opposites by highlighting flowers’ inherent beauty. I slightly underexposed the photo so the background could remain a brooding dark green, while I pushed the flowers toward their regal purple when editing. Finally, the focal plane tips slightly over the top of the flowers without looking straight down, which follows the diffuse nature light. So the flowers graduate from dark to lighter purple and less to more focussed as you look from bottom to top through the photo, 

There is an opulence to the colors of these Dame’s Rockets that would easily place them alongside other richly hued pieces in your Flower Essences collection. Or, this piece could hold court as it were in a formal dining room, living room or study. But be mindful, because its opulence comes with a starkly Crowded energy. This places it In Contrast to both itself and other pieces of the same hue, with which it might share the wall.

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