Release. This was a tough one.

It nearly broke me! This is what happened.

We have a row of beautiful Wisteria running down the fence line leading to our front gate.

I absolutely love the Wisteria! It pops in October and looks and smells AMAZING!

The abundance of flowers flowing for a full 10 metres create such a wonderful welcome to our property. They also keep the bees very busy.

Year after year I have watched Wisteria bloom and I desperately wanted my Wisteria to feature in The Humble Hunter collection of images.

Lilac and more

As soon as the fence line had good coverage I stole a bunch, brought them into the studio and started to explore. I wanted to have a photograph featuring the colour lilac and here was my opportunity.

Lilac offers the energy of silence, having an open mind, emotional expression, beauty, optimism, connection, understanding, gracefulness, transparency, kindness and compassion.

All of the wonderful things we all love. Now you can see why I wanted a lilac photo.

Looking at the bunch of Wisteria in front of me I didn’t yet know what her story was, but I knew she had one and I knew I would find it.

The trouble is, finding her story took me four days. That is not a typo, seriously finding her story and taking this photograph took me four days! I was hell bent on having a photo of Wisteria in the portfolio though, so I wasn’t going to stop until I was done.

High standards

I have high standards for my work, it has to be right, it has to be perfect, it has to really reach people and have the ability to connect whilst looking beautiful and amazing on peoples walls at the same time.

I would understandably get incredibly frustrated over those 4 days. I actually had another photo which I thought was right, but upon looking at it the next day, it didn’t move me, I couldn’t connect with it and I found myself back down by the front gate stealing another bunch to photograph.

Kintsugi

With all of the goodness lilac offers us, the thought of creating a Kintsugi photograph wouldn’t leave me alone. Lilac is quote the healing colour, and the shades I had in front of me really pushed towards recovery. Kintsugi had to play a part here, there was no doubt about that.

Day four and I was committed to today being the last day, I simply didn’t have any more time to spend here and had to wrap it up. This may sound crazy but with a fresh bunch of Wisteria in front of me, I found myself repeating “show me your story, show me your story”.

I was searching and searching looking through my macro lens. Looking from different perspective, different angles, different lighting. Shooting from different distances, trying to find the composition that would stop me in my tracks.

At this point my neck is stiff, my shoulders are cramping, my eyesight is getting blurry… Come on! Where are you!

Where are you?

Nothing was jumping at me. Nothing was calling me. Nothing was catching my eye. I thought maybe some slight deconstruction may provide a solution. I slowly start to pull flowers away from the bunch and place them in the top section so there is a higher number of flowers and less gaps.

The last one goes on top and just happens to balance there luckily. Bringing the camera in again I start at the top layer with the single flower balancing on top.

Wait a minute!!

I think we have a composition that’s working beautifully here! With only an hour or two to spare before the kids will be home, I think I have finally found some direction!

Armed with fresh inspiration and the sweet smell of success I take a few test shots and stare at what I have for a few minutes, this flower appears to be holding something but also opening to release.

Having a super shallow field of focus blurs the surrounds into the sweetest motion. I feel so loved and cared for in this photograph, I feel safe here.

Kintsugi Gold

The next step was to introduce the art of Kintsugi. This is not as easy as it seems. Keeping in mind I am shooting with a macro lens and extension tubes, my subject is about the size of a 20 cent piece.

The Kinstugi gold needs to be super fine in order to be a secondary element. The finest brush I have to apply gold never seems narrow enough. Adding the fact that flower petals don’t handle being painted very well at all, they deteriorate quite quickly upon application.

I have a magnifying light that I use to get in close to apply gold. I knew where I wanted it to be, but as the field of focus was so narrow, the gold had to be in focus completely in both locations. I did a test run on another petal and was quickly glad I did as the half loaded brush proved too much.

I fine tuned what I needed to do here before making an attempt on the actual flower. Of course, as much as I tried to have a feather light touch, the brush sticks and lifts the flower out of position.

A few swear words later I regroup and keep going. Both applications of gold are where they need to be though I notice a rogue spot had fallen where I didn’t intend for it to be.

Of course, I could photoshop this out later, though I much prefer to have the photo 99% perfect in camera. You can see this speck of gold on the left petal about half way down. I chose to leave it there. The speck of gold landed there on its own, so maybe it was meant to be.

Just leave it.

Not wanting to touch it anymore and risk any further incidents I was able to balance the flower back where it originally was. Looking through my viewfinder, the intentional two Kintsugi marking are right where I need them to be and are on the same place of focus!

And would you believe the third, unintentional speck of gold is also on the same plane of focus and is sharp as a tack! Ok! It was meant to be! The third speck is staying!

It is a wonderful feeling when everything comes together and apparent incidents were not actually incidents at all. They were just events that needed to happen to put things in the right place.

Because of the trials and tribulations which occurred during the four days of taking this one photo (that’s a record by the way), this photo is a favourite of mine.

It also taught me patience and perseverance and reminded me that good things are very worth fighting for.

What you reap, you sow. Good things come to those who keep their shit together and push through also.

The story of this photo is a special one. Releasing our negative thoughts one by one is something we all need to do on a regular basis. No one is immune to negative thoughts, its human nature and something our brain does to protect us.

To have a visual representation of this is an achievement as I pushed through the negative thoughts just in the process of creating it.

Thank you so much for being here,

The Humble Hunter x

See more of our Kintsugi Art or buy your copy of Release here.