| What started out as a job to record my mothers orchids turned into a style of photography that I never knew I had in me. My mother deserves all of the credit for the beauty of the images though because the orchids are hers. When I first picked up a 35mm camera at the age of 11, her flowers were some of my first subjects. As her taste in flowers changed, succulents, epiphyllums, African violets and then orchids, so did my style of photography.
During my momÕs flower growing phases I made occasional photographs for her to record what the flowers looked like in bloom. She in turn used these images for her records.
Many years later when I was in graduate school at Brooks, during a course in entrepreneurial business, our instructor gave us the opportunity to create our own business as a class project. The idea came to me capitalize on my photography for this class project. My mother commented that no one at local orchid shows sells greeting cards featuring orchid photographs. This seemed like a great niche to fill.
I started going through my archives of orchid photographs and organized them in order for the production of greeting cards. In addition I started shooting in earnest any blooming orchids that were in my motherÕs greenhouse. After a few months, I had enough images to consider using. The images were so striking I decided to print a few enlargements of the flowers.
Since the majority of my colleagues know me as a photojournalist, I decided that to mount a show of the best of my orchid photographs was a good way to debut this work to the world.
I hope you enjoy the images as much as I have in creating them. --Greg Cooper
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