The Little Visitor
This one has one of my favorite stories behind it, because the original photograph was probably one of the best catches I ever had with a camera.
We were living in San Jose, on Acadi Court, and we had a water fountain outside the house. I used to pull a dining room chair over, sit there with my 35mm Canon Rebel, and just wait. The trick was not to do much of anything. I would sit quietly, stay still, and let the birds get comfortable enough to come to me.
I took a lot of bird photographs that way, but this little hummingbird gave me something special. I caught him at just the right instant, with a drop of water hanging from his beak and those tiny wings still spinning. It was one of those moments that lasts almost no time at all, and somehow the camera caught it.
I’ve always loved that photograph. Hummingbirds are remarkable little creatures—so small, so fast, and somehow full of personality. When I came back to this image years later, I didn’t want to turn him into something else. I wanted to honor what was already there.
So I gave his world a little more magic—the water, the light, the color, the feeling of a place made especially for him.
The fantasy came later.
The hummingbird was already extraordinary.
The Garden Had Eyes
This was right in the heyday of summer, when this flower had all the sun it could possibly ask for—and it showed. The purples and pinks were putting on a display like a peacock. It was one of those flowers that didn’t exactly blend into the garden. It wanted to be noticed.
And apparently, it noticed me too.
It had eyes on me.
Of course, I had eyes on it, but that’s beside the point.
This picture shows a very creative part of the way I’ve started looking at flowers. In some of my artwork, I’ll take the center of a flower—the disc or seed head—and put something there that normally wouldn’t belong. Maybe bees, stones, or some other little object that gives the flower a completely different personality.
This time, I used eyes.
Once I put that first eye into the flower, the idea just kept growing. Pretty soon the whole garden was watching. Some of the eyes are obvious. Others are tucked back into the petals, leaves, and shadows, waiting for you to notice them.
That’s one of the things I enjoy most about doing this kind of work. I can start with something completely ordinary—a beautiful summer flower—and then look at it through a different pair of glasses.
And sometimes, when you look closely enough, the garden looks back.
