Coffee table book rec, #2 (…thinking this may become a recurring thing. I do love me some oversized novelty publishing)
If you have any love for florals at all, get this. I just got it as a present from someone who knows me too well—I grew up in a flower household, indoctrinated into the culture of the fresh-cut, so I have never felt good without something growing around. In any case, the pictures are excellent and it is more of an investigation into a photographer’s life than just a pretty flip book of blooms. Beane (who just beat cancer at 40) is clearly obsessed with his subjects, every little macro detail from the hairs on the stamen to the veins in the leaves. They are like women to his lens—delicate, exotic, scarily sexual, and impossible to capture or maintain. Transient pretty things ruined by filament. I love this work.
“My mother used to have a slate-lined flower bed in the back garden. Every year at the end of May the Oriental poppies would reappear. Their fuzzy heard shells would give way to this explosion of color. Unfortunately, between spring showes and morning dew, the brilliance of these top-heavy flowers was short-lived. I remember gray dust spread all over, crimson, pink, and black petals shattered on the grass below” - Christoper Beane
