New Award for Fleur Noir

I am thrilled with some news I received today: my latest black and white floral series Fleur Noir has been awarded an Honourable Mention at the International Photography Awards, New York. The competition attracted over 13,000 entries from 120 different countries and here are the images I submitted:

I had fun experimenting with a traditional method of lighting for this floral series, called the chiaroscuro lighting technique. Chiaroscuro is Italian for “light-dark”, and it’s a method that has been used by painters and other artists for hundreds of years.

The lighting suggests drama and suspense, which is further enhanced by the title of the series, Fleur Noir, or ‘dark flower’. The name plays on the Film Noir genre of films where mystery and drama is evoked by using hard light, dark shadows and strong contrasts. I wanted each flower to appear as a character in a ‘noir’ film, with the suggestion that one by one, they have stepped out of the dark shadows, into a pool of light.

I hope you enjoy browsing the series.

Paul.