What would make someone want to spend their free time photographing vegetables?

The photographs document the life cycle of a vegetable; from a minuscule seedling to the vegetable flower blooming, from shades of green to the ripeness of harvest time, from a withering leaf to rotting and drying up. Each individual photograph respects the grace of that moment in time.

Collectively, the photographs provide a photographic vision that accepts the entire cycle of life – from birth to death. When I began this project wanted to photograph the beauty of the flowering vegetable, because vegetables are not thought of as flowers. Unconscious, I began to realize my motivation was to get away from people and the city because I was overwhelmed emotionally by several deaths in my family. Although the photographs I created were beautiful I was not satisfied emotionally. I felt that the photographs lacked something.

I could see that my vision did not accept death as part of life. This was difficult, because I had not, nor did I see a way to make the change. So I changed my photographic approach.

I began to photograph in a meditative state that quieted my rational thinking mind and allowed my unconscious to guide the photography. I began to respond to my unconscious feelings about watching something alive; grow and then die and stopped creating merely beautiful photographs of vegetables. As I became aware of my feelings of sadness, frustration, anger and joy, the photographs of the vegetables I created came to reflect the emotional, complex, beautiful and intriguing journey of life.

Eventually, I could feel what my mind would not allow, and see, photograph and accept, what I could not in the world around me when I began the project.