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Tulips

Flowers from the garden of Rob Spruijt, well known painter of Tulips in the classic Dutch manner. In the spring of 2012, Rob invited me to join him in his garden as the Tulips flowered, to photograph them as he sketched during their brief time. Our intention was to show our work together, letting the paintings and photos comment on each other. Recently we brought our work together for the first time and hung it in Rob's studio so we could see the results.

Rob at work in the studio early in the growing season

While I began to experiment with ways to present the flowers

Tulips are so beautiful it's easy to take a pretty picture - harder to comment at the same time

But being in the garden for hours was an inspiration

and the flowers will help you if you are very still

The light changed every minute, really every second and the wind moved the compositions all the time

and the garden changed every week with new flowers coming up and the old ones withering

At their peak the masses were beyond description. What a challenge to do well.

I made pictures inside Rob's studio as he began to paint

Rob creates a beautiful order as he works, doing it almost unconsciously

and we share a formal approach to seeing that makes it a pleasure to shoot near him

Rob seen through the doors looking at the Tulips

more experiments with the images and the beginning of some sucess

Even near the end the flowers were beautiful

The beginning of the installation, pictures on the floor as we figured out where things would go

we mixed paintings and photographs of the Tulips

quite a number of people were confused by which were paintings and which were photographs

No question here but perhaps when the image is life size...

Guestbook for Tulips

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