Ive been fascinated with botany and have photographed flowers for 40 years now. Flowers were around long before animals – about 140 million years . There are estimated to be 400,000 species of flowering plants on earth. The sole purpose of a flower is reproduction and the color and scent is to attract pollinators.
I think we are all attracted to flowers – in every culture they are symbols - we use then to signify love and fertility at weddings and bring them to funeral, to represent grief and loss. Looking up each and every flower’s symbolism, they are a like a whole other secret language of metaphor and meaning. They’ve been the subject of art since the beginning, we praised them, in songs and poetry and paintings. But their beauty is brief - they die and decay. I sometimes find them more beautiful when they wither and droop – this transition to death is a whole other kind of beauty.