I had contemplated taking this shot while watching television. Looking at this plant across the room I thought it had nice color and interesting lines and shape and wondered how it fit in with the rest of the living room. There are other plants lined in front of a patio window but this one is the only one with a flower. I thought this would be good practice and help go through a checklist of technical settings for syncing strobes. So I setup up a camera with an umbrella and flash for lighting. The strobes didn’t sync right away but later on they did without knowing what changed or how it started I had meant to trigger them from the meter but didn’t quite get it which was confusing.
My favorite aspect of the work is the depth and shape of the plant. The focus starts on the flower and moves it way down to the candy piece wedged in between the leaves and then down to the opened egg. When I look at other artists’ work I see the color and lighting first to get an overall feel of the image, then pick out a few details and finally try to put the pieces together to figure what the message is. After doing that the message of this image can be related to a recent relationship. The symbolism of the flower and egg are very feminine subjects. The emoticon with the closed mouth and the wood background are characteristically male. The image is questionable and different from other still life because there usually isn’t an egg by an exotic flower and these plants don’t usually have candy resting in between the leaves. During the shoot it was then noticed that the plant was synthetic. Then thought about misting water to get a more saturated look but opted not to thinking it may look more plastic. To me this is a candid record of a very "intimate" act.
