Natural History Photograph - Limited Edition of 30

The amount of time I put into creating an image varies a lot, from days to months, but this one takes the award for the most time ever. It started when I planted a succulent plant in my garden, under a tree near where I often sit and read. It had a woody segmented stalk and a head of green leaves arranged in a radial shape. After a few years the weight of the plant’s head brought it down closer to the ground, curving the stalk, and a few more years later the thickening stalk put out air roots down to the ground. I noticed how those changes combined to make the plant seem like an animal, with the stalk and air roots becoming its legs and body, and the radiating leaves a lion-like head. The idea of the image as it has wound up, utilizing a shot I already had of a windmill’s blades as the creature’s head, was born at that moment. All that was required to get started was for me to photograph the plant. However, because the plant was under the shade of a tree, I’d have to shoot at night, using studio lighting equipment to create crisp light on the plant to match the rest of the composite. I’d also need to get down on my hands and knees to get the right camera angle. Certainly all do-able, but a bit of a pain, so I kept putting off taking the shot. I wound up procrastinating long enough that, after a few more years, the plant died. The leaves fell off, and the stalk dried up, but luckily retained it’s shape and color, and I was able to carefully pry it from the ground and transport it to my studio, which made shooting easy. Parts of a palm tree completed the job. Limited edition of 30 - signed and numbered on the print below the image and on an enclosed Certificate of Authenticity. Printed on Canson Platine Fibre Rag, an archival fine art paper. Image printed area: 17.25 X 11.5 inches. Total print size including white borders: 19 x 13 inches. It will be shipped rolled, securely inside a shipping tube.