A NEW PERSPECTIVE
“SO CLOSE AND SO UNSEEN”
Janice Tucker

While I always realized that Mother Nature puts a lot of detail and artistry into her efforts, it wasn’t until recently that I have become even more appreciative of her handiwork. This past summer has afforded me the opportunity to become re-acquainted with the beauty and wonderment of nature.

I’ve been taking herbarium photographs in the Leonora Curtin Wetland Preserve. The LCWP herbarium project, as organized by Helen Woody (a fellow Santa Fe Botanical Garden volunteer), goes way beyond the traditional herbarium definition.

A herbarium is a collection of dried plants, which are used for scientific study and as a reference collection of named specimens. Each herbarium specimen contains actual plant material as well as label information detailing attributes of the specimen such as the collector/s, date of collection, and collection site details.

Since these specimens are fragile, the LCWP herbarium project has also recorded each flowering plant on cards - a digital herbarium. Each card has a photograph of the flower, Latin name, common name, family, description, mature size, bloom, interesting facts, and traditional and medicinal uses.

During our photo hunts for blooming plants, Helen and I came upon the most amazing tiny plants, small gems in the middle of an overgrown meadow or surviving on hard, dry and bare earth. It touches the heart to see something so small and beautiful surviving with great panache in this climate of wind, drought, flash floods and temperature swings.

When editing photos taken after a day of plant hunting and shooting, I was struck by the details of the flowers in both large and small plants. Now I look at flowers - both "in the field" and in my garden - with a whole new perspective, giving me a renewed appreciation of their loveliness.

This new perspective brings to mind a comment by Al Schneider whose plant photographs are mounted on the SOUTHWESTERN COLORADO WILDFLOWERS website.

. . . using a powerful magnifier opens a world of beauty that you cannot see with your
unaided eye. I liken it to dropping below the surface of water with snorkel gear and
discovering a whole new world that was so close and so unseen.”

Beauty can be in the details. Keeping this new perspective in mind go out into your garden or enjoy a nature walk. Take along a camera, a magnifying glass or a good pair of binoculars and observe the plants close-up. See that cluster of flowers in a spiraea, Russian sage, or Autumn Joy sedum? Look closely through the magnifing lens and you’ll be treated to a bouquet of miniature individual flowers. Take note of a flower’s throat. Tulips and hollyhocks are particularly intricate. You’ll be amazed!

MOTHER NATURE'S ARTISTRY - A NEW PERSPECTIVE

PHOTOS BY JANICE AND SONNY TUCKER