Hana

• Prize
• Photographer
  Mark Vassallo, Japan

Flowers for me embody perfection - a realisation of the completeness of nature . 
They bloom seemingly without effort and every stage of this evolution is an expression of their complete and perfect  beauty .
There is a difference between what I am aiming to create and botanical photographs . I want to capture the personality of the individual bloom - a moment of life and connection - a meeting .
I don't want to make a picture that observes or describes a flower - I want to be inside the flower - to be flower  . To connect intensely .

I resist the the temptation to name or learn the names of these flowers because naming them , or in an intellectual sense knowing is not conducive to clearly seeing . I want see these flowers with the naive -pure eyes of a infant . Continuously searching the forms as if the flowers will speak to me and show me who they are beyond the names they have been given .
I try to leave myself out of the equation and see the flower - disappear into it .
My approach to capturing this expression is similar to portrait photography . 
Each flower has her own distinctive character and temperament and is in constant dynamic motion . I observe and continuously shoot the flowers from bud to blossom over the course of several days . They open to the warmth and close to shy away from cold turning and stretching always toward the light until they eventually  give up their petals . Sometimes this moment of ultimate expression comes sooner and sometimes later -  unless I observe the whole process I never know when .

Awards 1992 Cohn & Wolfe Award
1999 Kiyosato Photo Art Museum: Young Portfolio Award
2008 Art Directors Club 87th Annual Awards - Merit Award
2011 Taylor Wessing London - Elle comendation