The Story Behind the Image - Spring "Snow"

While volunteering for “The Art of Recovery” program, I took my student art partner to Prescott Park. This park is a true gem on the seacoast of New Hampshire, USA. It is filled with beautiful flowers and vibrant color. On this day however, it was a very different scene and it was quite a surprise to me!

The Image

The story

For a few years, I was a volunteer for a wonderful program called “The Art of Recovery”. It paired local artists with mental health outpatients to create art. The artwork was then auctioned off to raise funds for mental health treatment for uninsured patients. My partner and I worked hard on our artwork and there was an art show of the work at a local gallery. We took a field trip to drop off our work.

It was May and the gallery was right near Prescott Park. We stopped by the park and much to my surprise, the garden looked very different than it had every other time that I had been there throughout my lifetime. It looked like snow was falling from the trees!

I shouldn’t have been so surprised, but as you can see in the photo above (which I LOVE), the park was all green and white. Not infused with thousands of colorful petals like the photo below. I guess I have only visited in mid-summer when the flowers are in full bloom. And yet, this white / green scene before me was just as gorgeous.

The park in summer time:

The technique

The technique for this photo is more about what was I thinking at the time.  I wanted to capture the white flowers (that looked to me like snow), the path, the picket fence, and the craggy tree. I also like the touch of red of the brick building at the end of the path. The diagonal line of the fence and the direction of the branches lead our eyes down the path of white petals.  A lot of the magic of photography is about how we see our subject and what we think about before we take the photo.

There was one unwanted surprise in this photo. One that I edited out in Adobe Photoshop using the remove tool. Can you spot it in this original version of the photo?  To me it stuck out clearly after the fact. If I had noticed it before I took the photo, I could easily have avoided it.

Have you seen your local favorite spot in all the different seasons?

I didn’t even realize I was missing out by only visiting this beautiful park in the summer. Now I’ve added ‘how would this look in another season?’ to my mental checklist when visiting nature spots with my camera. Where would you like to explore in different seasons?

Would you like to learn how you can think and see differently to improve your photography? If so, sign up for my waiting list for my online course “Take Your Best Shot: Great Photos Made Simple” and you’ll hear about it the next time I open it up for enrollment!

If you'd like to see this photograph on products or as wall art, check out my online shop. Enjoy!