Artificial Baby's Breath Flowers in a Glass of Water, Lafayette Cemetery No 1, New Orleans
Baby’s Breath flowers in a glass tumbler in this found still life photograph at Lafayette Cemetery No 1, in the Garden District of New Orleans, Louisiana. Baby’s Breath is a symbol of innocence, everlasting love, and purity and as such frequently used in wedding bouquets, perhaps the ultimate celebration of life. In this use as a funerary memorial, the flowers emerge from the darkening gray as they progress towards the right of the image as if to contravene the recession of death. They appear as the order of nature against the chaos of brushstrokes from hastily applied whitewash, behind. Even though the flowers are made of plastic and cloth they have been placed in a glass, in the hope of continued life. With their own shadows, the flowers form a pyramid, contrasting the geometric framework of rectangular forms, imparting stability to the composition of the photograph.
