Agapanthus
Becoming
There is a moment before a flower opens when everything it will become is already there.
Held tightly.
Waiting.
Waiting.
I began photographing these agapanthus almost without thinking about it. I was drawn to their shapes, their colour, the way each flower seemed to exist at a slightly different point in its life.
Some were still closed.
Some were beginning to open.
Others had already started to fall away.
Some were beginning to open.
Others had already started to fall away.
Emergence
Looking closely, what first appeared to be one flowering plant became something else entirely.
A collection of small beginnings.
Flowers pushing through their protective casing. Buds leaning in different directions. One bloom opening while another remained tightly closed.
Nothing happening all at once.
Unfloding
There is something beautiful about that unevenness.
We tend to notice a flower when it is fully open, as though that is the moment it has finally arrived.
But looking through the camera made me notice everything that came before it.
The waiting was part of it too.
Opening
And then, almost quietly, they opened.
Not together.
One by one.
At the Centre
Up close, the familiar became unfamiliar.
Colour became shape.
Petals became landscape.
Petals became landscape.
And details too small to notice from a distance became an entire world of their own.
A Visitor Arrives
And life arrived.
A tiny visitor resting for a moment among the buds.
It would have been easy to miss.
Perhaps that is one of the things photography continues to teach me — that so much of life is happening quietly, whether we notice it or not.
Fading
Eventually, the flowers began to fade.
Their colour softened.
Petals curled and fell.
Petals curled and fell.
But I found myself just as interested in them then.
There was still beauty there.
Not the beauty of something perfect or newly opened, but the quieter beauty of something changing.
What remained was different again.
The softness had gone.
The colour had disappeared.
The colour had disappeared.
What was left was structure, line and evidence of what had been there before.
Perhaps becoming is never only about arriving.
Perhaps it is the whole thing —
the waiting,
the opening,
the living,
the letting go,
the opening,
the living,
the letting go,
and whatever remains afterwards.
Reaching Out
A Small Encounter
Almost
Between Stages
Gathering
Among the Blue
Blue haze
Coming In
After the Bloom
