Winter's Beauty

by Leigh

Winter….my least favorite time of year. Work is slow, the sun shines less often, the cold brutal wind chills me to the core and then there are the snow days.  Snow day after snow day after snow day……you catch my drift.  So here I am stuck at home as the snows falls outside.  The kids are ecstatic that school was closed and I tell myself that's it's better to be inside my warm cozy home than out in the elements.  I had my post for this week all planned out.  I was going to use the monthly focus as inspiration.  But that idea quickly faded as I realized that I have very little red in my house.  No problem…I'll just head to the store and pick up some red flowers to photograph.  Oh yeah….the roads are too slick.  So here I am stuck at home and my plan isn't going to pan out.  Thanks a lot winter.  You suck.

But then I remembered the fondness I discovered for winter just a couple weeks earlier.  My friend Jamie, a landscape architect at Olthia and I hosted a Native Plant + Photography Workshop.  When she first approached me with the idea of a workshop in the middle of winter I was skeptical to say the least.  Who in their right mind wants to photograph plants in the winter!  But after we met at the park and she showed me the plants she wanted to focus on….I understood her vision.  I took my camera out and began to shoot….and there was beauty to be found everywhere!  so the seed was planted for our workshop with the tagline, 

"the plants aren't dead….they're just sleeping." 

Our goal was to show people the beauty of these native plants in the winter and how to capture that beauty with your camera.  As Jamie called it, "an out-of-the-ordinary adventure into the soul of indigenous plants, via your camera lens. The seed continued to grow and I got more and more excited about this new adventure.

I chose to focus on five aspects of photography.  Jamie took these and married them beautifully with her five plant focuses.

• Be Composed-and get in the thicket of it (Sumac)
• Shift Perspective-to find that which feeds you (Persimmon)
• Be Focused-and discover a hidden gem (Beautyberry)
• Seek The Light-but have firm roots (Little Blue Stem)
• Be Detailed-to see the cosmos in a single flower (Sunflower)

We offered a morning and an evening workshop.  The two different times allowed it to be a new experience for us with each group.  The five days following the workshop we had carefully crafted emails sent to the participants with even more info about the five plants and their corresponding photography element. Planning is now underway for more Native Plantography workshops.  Our goal is to have one every season with different plants and photography subjects.

I am so thankful for Jamie encouraging me to "get out in it".  It is so easy to shut ourselves inside when the weather doesn't suit us.  But just because the days can be dreary, the temperature cold, the sunshine non existent, doesn't mean there isn't beauty to be found.  I have found inspiration in winter and inspiration for new ways to share my passion with the world.  

Thank you Jamie from the bottom of my heart, for opening my eyes to ideas that I would have never pursued on my own.