As part of a residency at the Glasgow Print Studio, I experimented with the exposure of flowers directly to light sensitive plates, capturing plants at various stages of the life cycle. The resulting images with their ‘ghost’ shadows and variable focus, refer back to the earliest photographic experiments where objects – often plant specimens – were exposed to light sensitive plates.

In many of these experiments, I used orchids – pressing, flattening and preserving them.  Collecting and working with these plants in the studio,I became interested in the extended time it took for these plants to die back, documenting the change in composition as they did so.

The resulting prints – which use traditional as well as contemporary imaging techniques – look at the natural world through a lens mediated by technology. Aware of the complex relationship between science, nature and commerce that are all implicated when we look at something as apparently simple as a flower.