Beauty

I have recently started shooting flowers in the process of "passing into another state."  What I have come to realize is that they are possibly more beautiful than they were when they were "fresh."

This started be thinking about the concept of beauty in art.  Beauty is seductive both to the artist and the critic.  Beauty is difficult. I suspect that critics find it difficult because they are afraid of what other critics will say about them if they give a great review to work that it is beautiful.  Artist find it difficult to deal with in a serious way.   We are afraid that someone will trivialize our work by saying it is "pretty."  That's almost as bad as saying it's boring!  Trust me, boring is worse........

In showing the flower pictures, I am struck by how many folks comment that they didn't realize that dieing flowers could be so beautiful.  Maybe this is a result of seeing them large where small details are made visible. Who knows?

Many photographers today seem to be afraid of beauty.  We see portraits of people staring blankly at the camera,  deserted building, and the truly banal passed off as "great art."

Maybe I'm just out of touch........