Flower Studies: Silver gelatin prints & Toned Cyanotype prints

 Photography and flowers remind me of my childhood home in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. My earliest memory was my dad with his camera taking photos of my mom and us in our garden in Addis Ababa. 

I photographed my flower studies series using my Hasselblad camera and Kodak Tmax 400 and Ilford hp5 120 film format. For my artist residency show, I wanted to print my work in the darkroom as a tribute to my parents who loved photography and instilled in me the love of photography and nature. 

I began this photo series in  2018, shooting photographs  in Addis Ababa, Paris, Nuremberg, DC, and Clearwater. Over the course of the five years it took me to make a body of work for this series, I was inspired by the varied plants and flowers I encountered while traveling. During the pandemic it was difficult to photograph people, but I still found value and inspiration in photographing flowers. 

Photographing the flowers allows me to accept limitations and welcome uncertainties of not always having a subject readily available to photograph. Printing the flower study on silver gelatin paper that is archival is important to me because it’s my way of honoring the flowers by immortalizing them. The idea that the image of the flowers is given another chance to continue living on this archival piece of paper fascinates me, as it allows the viewer to honor the flowers by appreciating the care that was put into creating the prints. 

The toned cyanotype prints of a single Iris are an homage to modern photography’s fixation with digital filters. Toning the prints was my own commentary on a wider usage of image manipulation. I printed the same photo using different types of watercolor paper and toned with natural plants like avocado pit, coffee beans, and tea leaves. 

On the back of the prints is my exposure time, filter grade, aperture, and toning information written in  pencil. The silver gelatin prints are toned with selenium to lock in their archival quality and tonality. I have signed the backs of each of these prints.