Here are two new recent Dahlia images! They are very different.

The spectacular almost-dinner-plate white bloom (shown immediately below) is the first from a newly planted bulb. The image is pretty straightforward, on black, made with my 50mm f/1.4 Summilux. The flower was large enough to avoid any macro complications.

The other, monochrome image is a macro (below), made using a bellows and focusing rail. The lens was a 5.8cm f/2.0 Helios-44mm – early m39 ZTM lens with 13 aperture blades, s/n 0023609. This is a soviet-era lens that I ordered from a dealer in the Ukraine (write me if you’d like the details, as they seem to be a reliable source for unusual Russian optics).

Fitting it on to my modern M-bayonet involved two adapters: one thin insert to tweak the screw size upwards from 39mm to 44mm, then a screw-to-bayonet adapter.

The lens itself is pretty interesting. Obviously it doesn’t have the sharpness or resolution of a modern Leica lens, but it does give some wild subjective rendering, like this high micro-contrast image captured with my Monochrom M.

In this context, the term “projection” as it is used in the title of this blog story refers to what someone sees in an image. This is the basis for Rorschach tests: what is seen says more about the viewer than the subject. In other words, it is in the eye of the beholder.

I would also add that sometimes a dirty mind is indeed a great consolation; although, since flowers tend to be pretty upfront about their x-rated parts, the anthropomorphism shown by projecting human genitalia on this innocent flower is conceptually irrelevant and totally, needlessly prurient.

Some related posts: Eros; Sacred and Profane Love; Little Shop of Horrors (my original blog post about this image).

Click here for more Iris images!

I am delighted to report that the new Moab Slickrock Metallic Pro paper not only overcomes the flaws in the earlier version but on its own is a wonderful and compelling material for making high-end inkjet prints. It is highly recommended! Here are a few of the prints that I’ve made with Slickrock Metallic Pro.

First, it should be noted that there is an aspect to this paper that simply cannot be adequately captured in a single still image of a print. The paper is of course highly reflective, but this reflectivity renders in a photo as grey (see the borders on the prints that accompany this story). Typically, when viewing a print on this surface (or any metallic surface for that matter) you don’t see it as a single color because the surface changes as your position changes, and also depending upon the light. So no one single capture will ever do justice to the lustrous and almost magical surface of this material.

I really cannot say enough good things about this paper. Obviously, it is not a fit for all images, but this is true for any paper, and part of the craft and art of printmaking is marrying the image to the material it is printing on. That said, I have printed a wide variety of subjects on the paper. The colors run true, the paper is easy to handle and “plays” well with our Epson 9900. 

For monochrome prints, the blacks are lustrous. Overall, the dynamic range is extensive, and gradations are delicate and well rendered.

If you are into making your own prints I think you should give Slickrock Metallic Pro a try. It will likely become one of your go-to substrates. If you do try it, please let me know what you think by adding a comment to this story!

If you’d like to give it a try, you can buy your own Slickrock Metallic Pro paper by following this link!

Workshop description: To resolve these two semi-paradoxes, in this hands-on workshop, we will approach composition as an instance of open-ended two-dimensional design. Photographic exercises will start with simple shapes, such as lines and circles, and proceed through patterns and repetitions, and onwards to spirals, fractals, and abstractions. Field sessions will take advantage of the “target-rich” mid-coast Maine scenery. Classroom discussions will be intended to provoke thought about composition basics and continue to enable individual integration of the process of composition into each participant’s creative practice. Space is limited in this small, in-person workshop.

Opportunities: Great Gardens of Japan Photography Tour (November 2026); Composition & Photography (Maine, August 2026); Base Camp Library Event (through June 14, 2026, click here for discount code info).

Would we get through the Brandenburg Tor? Would Checkpoint Charlie have been a better choice for the crossing? Would the Stasi be waiting for us?

I turned to Bernie. “Don’t be concerned,” I said. “That’s all on a different timeline. There’s absolutely nothing to worry about.” Famous last words. Welcome to Biff’s world.

Original blog story with the image (2018); Inspiration: Bernie Gunther series.

• A 45–75+ minute photography class
• Q&A with the presenter
• Member-submitted image reviews, so you can see how the ideas apply to real photographs

• Buy 3 and save 20% with code BASECAMP20
• Buy 5 and save 30% with code BASECAMP30
• Buy 8 and save 35% with code BASECAMP35

Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Base Camp Photo Club, and receive a fee for purchases.

I wanted to experiment with this “Lydith” effect, and to see how far I could take it. I added a variable extension tube (the Leica Macro-Adapter-M) between my camera (Leica 11MP) and the Lydith lens, and headed out to the garden at night with a tripod. I then practiced fairly long duration exposures (in the one to four second range) aimed at a color light source, focusing on optical refractions themselves rather than the light source.

The resulting abstract images, some shown here, are attractive, and are really about light itself. This is in keeping with one of the long-standing tenets of photography: the only thing you can capture as a matter of physics is light reflected or emitted by an object. You cannot capture the object itself. This kind of neo-Platonic paradox is referenced in the origins of the word photography. Its meaning is “to write with light.” 

My photography is my excuse for meditating in the garden, and the garden is my sanctuary. One does not really need an excuse to enter a sanctuary, but it helps to cloak my act of devotion with some veneer of practicality.

It is good to put aside the rush of modern life. Leave the cell phone outside the garden—unless you need it as a camera trigger, or to find your way through the maze of a large Japanese garden.

Forget about business, receivables, the needs of kids, the politics of empire. You are here in the garden. The flowers are expending their short lives in part to give one grace to enjoy. Water is flowing. Hummingbirds are engaging in their quick motions, using their long tongues to lap nectar. Within a blossom a bee is replete with pollen, its side panniers bulging.

All senses are occupied, but in a peaceful way. This may be my garden, but I am not the one controlling sun, wind, and weather. Clouds drift lazily overhead. The sun shifts the angles of shadows, casts heat, life, and life, and heliotropic flowers respond. Fragrance drifts on the breeze.  The time is yours, now, and forever, and no reason to fill this sweet ephemeral moment with the clamor of the monkey mind. The garden is exquisitely peaceful.

Sometimes it rains, and the joy, the pure joy as wetness abounds. Each moment is a passing world, and it is yours to enjoy in quiet contemplation.

When it is my garden, the pleasures are even more sweet. I am the steward. I know these rocks, these plants, these trees. Here is the maple I planted a quarter of a century ago when it was a small sapling. Here’s the cherry tree that I planted when my son was born.

I shape, comfort, and work with each square millimeter, trying to tease out the essence that the garden is showing me. It is pleasing that my garden is small in dimensions, so that my tasks are manageable, not grandiose, and not a chore.

Each new flower is a blessing, and I tend the plants helping the stressed and providing fertilizer and comfort to the green living beings.

In my small plot, I am benign gardening god, and my hands and touch are in the dirt and on every vista.

The world at large can be wondrous and magical, and I am fully at home as a pilgrim in the world. But astoundingly there is as much magic and whimsy in the near-at-hand, in my garden flowers, twigs, and other botanical ephemera.

I am enjoying at this time in the world not engaging too much beyond the borders of “my country” (within our garden gate). Next year, who knows?