Yellow Roses

Did you get flowers for Valentine's Day?

My favorite flower is a yellow rose. Yellow is my favorite color and I have a passion for the rose. I love lavender. No other smell soothes my soul in quite the same way. I have a new adoration for hydrangea, which are prolific and long lasting. I like delicate pansies with their little faces...but their is nothing in this world more perfect than a rose. Visually speaking, The rose is also the one flower I feel unable to properly capture in a photograph. No matter how beautiful my rose portraits are, I am unable to beat the beauty of nature itself. (A Rose's Last Hurrah, the pink rose above, is the one that I feel has come closest to the perfection I seek. It's colors are delicate and also vibrant. The details of the petals are visible with fine lines that add a porcelain quality the flower. The iamge shows the petals unfolding, their curves and slight imperfections. The image include leaves and thorns, showing the rose's whole character.)

My husband once paid me a great compliment...he is not really a flower person. He enjoys my gardens, but doesn't feel a connection to them really. He told me that my flower photographs are more beautiful than the flowers themselves. He said that my photos make him see beauty that he never would have otherwise noticed. My husband doesn't say things like this unless he means them.

I love capturing a flower's essence. When I hang my flower images on my walls, they brighten the room and remind me of spring. My pictures can make me as happy as seeing the real thing...but not my pictures of roses. It's not just my pictures though...I can't think of any rose image I've seen that evokes the same mood from me that a real rose does. Delicate soft petals, rich colors, curvaceous blossoms gently unfolding...sometimes we just can't improve or match nature's best.

My husband gave me a dozen yellow roses yesterday. These are extra special because they have coral edging. I walk by the kitchen counter and have to stop to smell them. They are exquisite. The flowers are about half open now and I'm toying with the idea of creating a still-life with them. Is it a useless endeavor? Perhaps if I keep at it and keep creating photos that unsatisfy me, the rose will become my nemesis and my passion for it will suffer. How do other artists deal with this? Do you keep trying to capture the elusive subject or do you eventually give up and move on?