Calla Lily

A good friend recently asked if I ever paint flowers, given my penchant for photographing them. At this point, I have to offer an emphatic "no." I tried, of course, during the earliest period of my self-imposed apprenticeship with brushes and tubes of color. I usually attempted roses, but my last effort was the calla lily, a favorite since having grown them in my Tennessee gardens. They're fairly idiot proof and the results are always so incredible . . . the subtlety of their colors, the graceful taper of their long stems, fading from green into the dominant color of each bloom. With that shape they're very elegant. Alas, I was not happy with the results, primarily because I just didn't feel as if I had captured their grace. So thereafter I abandoned flowers for the hard-edged reality of architecture and urban scenes.

Normally I wouldn't photograph flowers in a shop window. But these callas (and an interesting rose of variegated red and white) were just too stunning to pass up. We're lucky that one of the best flower shops in the city (not counting the wholesale places in the west side's "flower district") is right around the corner from our home. Their regular displays of flowers are always stunning - and no doubt expensive. So we admire from afar. I'm surprised these images turned out ok, since they were shot at night, through the glass windows of the shop.