Featured Photo: Odysseus finds joy
Today’s featured photo is Odysseus finds joy. It’s one of my favorites, and I love the story of its creation.
This is one of my first attempts at arranging a still life photograph. Typically I photograph what’s available, what arrives in front of me in its natural state. Arranging a still life takes a little more intention and thought. This image combines two of my favorite things: books and flowers. Old things and tender things. Also, lost things and found things.
So, the story.
One evening last April I went to Food Lion for groceries. It being spring, the store had hanging baskets outside the entrance, and fallen stems and petals littered the sidewalk. In the bottom of the cart I chose, I noticed a stem that had fallen off a basket, and two bruised petunias left behind. It felt like serendipity to me, finding such fragile beauty in the midst of a mundane chore like grocery shopping. I guarded those little flowers as I filled my cart, careful not to mash them as I gathered what I needed for supper. I knew I wanted these little left behind beauties in a photograph, and I had a pretty solid idea in my head.
The book is my late aunt’s copy of The Odyssey, which I likely chose because it’s blue, my favorite color. It was among the books from her English teacher library that were given to me when she died of Alzheimer’s in April 2019. It’s one of those small, old classics–palm-sized, hardback, plain cover, and yellowed pages. The kind of book that recalls another time. The Odyssey was one among several of these old books which include Plato’s The Republic, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Cicero’s Orations, and Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. (I have no doubt that my aunt read these!)
After choosing my book, I carried it and my little petunias outside to my wildflower garden. I tucked the open book in among the Wild Columbine and laid the stem of petunias on the pages. I plucked a little buttercup from the yard and added it to the petunias, making a nice mix of primary colors in the focal point of the image. As I laid down on my belly to frame the shot, a gentle breeze fluttered the pages slightly, creating a hint of movement in this still life photograph.
With the soft green of the columbine foliage in the background, the delicate flowers, and fluttering pages, the image feels ethereal and timeless.
Just like I’d hoped.
🖤
Odysseus finds joy is available in both open and limited edition prints. You can find it here.
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