Fun & Roses ...
By Gustavo Morejon
26 Apr 2009
The roses first appeared on the face of Earth probably 35 million years ago. The Chinese people were probably the first growers of this amazing flower, but the first written proofs of rose gardening belong to the Sumerian. The roses were found in the tombs of the Egyptians and were certainly used in the Roman empire.
In the 15 century, the roses had so much value that they could be used as legal tender by royalty. Josephine, Napoleon´s wife, had so much love for roses that she grew around 250 varieties of this flowers by herself. In 1800 there were more than 1000 varieties of roses. But it is only in the last 2 centuries that the number of rose varieties grew up to more than 30.000 colorful combinations.
Three years ago, I had the rare opportunity to be invited by two of the best rose growers and exporters of Ecuador, South America, for a series of photographic sessions of their amazing rose varieties. The selection of pictures here included are a very small example of a collection of more than 5000 photographs taken with the goal of documenting their awesome diversity.
Ecuador is one of the greatest rose exporters in the Planet and having this amazing opportunity was a real honor for me. But I had to learn a lot about rose photography. There are specific rules regarding the position of the roses and what the growers want to show.
The roses had to be opened and the point of opening had to be clearly identified. It is very important to show the stems and how large they are, but in this pictures I fell in the seduction of showing, mainly, the flowers itself instead of the whole rose with the whole stem.
As the flowers had to be opened by the time I decided to picture them and not all the varieties were opened at the time I visited the plantations, soon the examples arrived to my apartment in Cuenca, Ecuador. I had so many roses in my place that soon it smelled like a flower store and I had roses in every corner of it. My wife told me once: "... it seems that now we are living in a rose plantation".
I had to wait with patience to have the roses opened and once they were ready, I immediately starting shooting. The lights were crucial when shooting the roses and the use of macro lenses is a "must". I tried to choose all the pictures that were not too technically correct or "only for growers catalog". I had a hard time looking for the right ones. I hope you enjoy my selection... This is my personal photographic bouquet.
1 response
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Linda Houghton said (2 Jul 2009):
I am a rose lover of all time. This is a fantastic story and I say Yeah! It Rocks! All of your rose photographs are absolulty exqusit!!!!! Keep it up! Thanks for Sharing!
