This One is for Matthew

When I was an art student I had a love affair with ortho film. It was a very high contrast black and white film. Then I moved on to photocopy machines where the image degraded with each copy until you got a very high contrast image rather like ortho. But in the last fifteen years or so photocopy machines have become so good that you can no longer get this effect, which is when I started to use the camera and computer. All this preamble leads me back to black and white and meeting Matthew Beale, a photographer, painter and friend whose photographic work continues to inspire me. Check out his web -site here, or his Blog here. I love how saturated the blacks are, maybe velvety is a better word. I always want to touch his photos.

And my love affair with echinacea continues. Every stage of this plants' life is a marvel. The emergence of the leaves to the forming of the flower head. The budding process with the formation of the crown to the withering away and exposing the bare seed head. A plant of great structure and beauty, it has wonderful medicinal purposes. Like so many I use it all winter to boost my immune system.