“New Mexico proved to be a seemingly endless inspiration for O’Keeffe. Its trees, crosses, churches, brilliant blue sky, and especially the land with its lustrous red earth, arroyos, mesas, and rugged mountains – all became the subjects of her frequently luminous, occasionally playful paintings. Working with often richly saturated colors and simplified natural forms, she strove to transfer the ecstatic feelings she had when she contemplated the landscape that affected her; she sought “something that in myself that will give me a symbol for all this – a symbol of the sense of life I get out here.” – Sarah Greenough, Selected Letters Of Georgia O’Keefe…

Reading this, I wanted to cry. This is precisely what I felt when I moved to the country for good in 2003; something in me was also fused with the sense of life I got up here. It’s with me still, something I never had anywhere I lived before.  I was surprised to learn I needed to live with animals and natural life all around me. A farm is in itself a sense of life  – jk.

The photos below marked a turning point for me.  They were taken by a Leica SL- 2 Mirrorless camera and an Iphone 15 Pro Max. I felt like I had finally learned how to capture a flower’s heart and the magnificent color where it beats. Plealsell come and take a look?

Flowers are beautiful when they live and lovely when they die.  This Rose is dying.