My assistant, Marisa and my previous assistant Peicha both travelled to New York from Boston and Philly to take a day long class from the Rulers of a certain type of floral design that we admire here at Bow Street Flowers. Sarah from
Saipua and Nicolette of
Nicolette Camille held court to teach their students how to design an arrangement based upon Dutch flower paintings. The place was packed. Everyone was dazzled.
While our design style has always been inspired by gardens and we've always used interesting materials, these two women have taken this style to another plane and have developed a philosophy of flowers that is thrilling and speaks to the heart of all florists who truly love beautiful flowers.
Other inspirations are Erin at
Floret Flowers who grows impossibly gorgeous flowers on her farm in Washington,
Ariella Chazar whose bride's bouquets are flawlessly beautiful. Lotte, from
Lotte in Bloom makes lovely soft arrangements and wedding work that look as though the flowers were picked moments before.
A favorite painter from the 18th c. I wish had some of her containers!
I played hooky on Tuesday and went to Maine with a friend, looking for interesting containers. I found two metal Jardinieres from England that I thought might work for a certain customer whose anniversary is coming up soon.
Yesterday I bought a flower frog and at the end of the day, Marisa and I set up on of them with the frog and chicken wire. Then Marisa strut her stuff she learned in NY. The result was pretty great. Unfortunately, most of the flowers died overnight so I didn't get a photo this morning.(the flowers were pretty old). Today, I did try and follow the lines Marisa had created.
This brings me to the subject of my new Nikon D 3100. I've played around with it for a few days. I read the Manual. I formatted the memory card. I adjusted the viewfinder. I took notes on the photos I did take on different settings. My photos kept looking like crap. I did learn, though, that the morning has the best light on a sunny day. I learned that landscape mode is a good choice for what I photgraph, but manual works good too. The screen is my only gripe. All the photos look grainy and the color is awful. So I took some photos with my Canon point and shoot. Photos on that screen looked pretty and the color looked great. I put them both onto the computer. Here is the difference:
Canon
Nikon
Anyone who wants to weigh in with an opinion, please feel free, and if you're a photographer, PLEASE weigh in!