{"id":567,"date":"2021-04-16T14:53:40","date_gmt":"2021-04-16T13:53:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rudolfkremers.com\/photography\/?p=567"},"modified":"2021-05-13T12:49:34","modified_gmt":"2021-05-13T11:49:34","slug":"honesty-flowers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rudolfkremers.com\/photography\/honesty-flowers\/","title":{"rendered":"Honesty Flowers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in the early 1990s I lived in Amsterdam, (yes, I\u2019m that old), and was friends with a very skilled and talented painter called Theo Wittering. He doesn\u2019t have much of an online presence now, but back then his work was regularly bought by major collections.<\/p>\n

I visited his atelier many times, and was always struck by the power of some of his darker pieces. There was one painting specifically which was very striking indeed, featuring a dramatic skull and other moody imagery. It was great to see it gradually evolve on subsequent visits, until one day, I came to visit to find it replaced with a painting of peony roses …<\/p>\n

I asked him what had happened to the skull painting. He pointed at the roses and said, \u201cOh I painted over it. I prefer the roses.\u201d I was taken aback. Roses? Really? Where is the excitement in that?<\/p>\n

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And then I looked again, and realised that the peonies were gorgeous. A wonderful, classical painting executed with heart and skill. And I realised I admired Theo for his basic honesty as an artist. He didn\u2019t feel the need to pander to \u201cedgy\u201d fads or be in fashion. He just painted with integrity, and if that meant roses then so be it.<\/p>\n

That was about 25 years ago, but I still think about that encounter frequently, because I have realised I absolutely LOVE flower photography, both as a photographer and as a viewer, and I think it suits me. Something in my style seems to just click when I photograph flowers. There\u2019s an entire world of mystery to be found between and underneath the petals, and I love showing it with my phots.<\/p>\n

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So now, whenever I wonder if people will dismiss the work as \u201cjust flowers\u201d I think to to myself: they are \u201cHonesty Flowers\u201d<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 And I realise that I should disregard any fear of what others might think of my work, and just be honest about what I like and enjoy. Sometimes that is flowers, but it also applies to any other subject that I feel is worthy of exploration.<\/p>\n

So, here\u2019s a set of honesty flowers. Do let me know what you think, but I will keep photographing them regardless \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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ADDENDUM:<\/p>\n

Since writing this I\u2019ve stumbled across the excellent work of Gabriel Dean Roberts, who writes about his experience photographing flowers (including Peonies!) and selling his work as NFTs. Go read his blog<\/a> .<\/p>\n

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Back in the early 1990s I lived in Amsterdam, (yes, I\u2019m that old), and was friends with a very skilled and talented painter called Theo Wittering. He doesn\u2019t have much of an online presence now, but back then his work was regularly bought by major collections. I visited his atelier many times, and was always […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rudolfkremers.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rudolfkremers.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rudolfkremers.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rudolfkremers.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rudolfkremers.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.rudolfkremers.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":599,"href":"http:\/\/www.rudolfkremers.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567\/revisions\/599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rudolfkremers.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rudolfkremers.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rudolfkremers.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}