Photogenic Florals

Capturing the transient beauty of the garden.

Judy Stalus would like you to stop and see the roses, or maybe the tulips or delphiniums. “People don’t take the time to see the beauty around them,” says Stalus, who has been a fine art photographer since the early ’70s.

Stalus has a way with flowers. Her ethereal photos of fresh picked peonies reveal their outer and inner beauty – plus a bit of magic. The soft gauzy look is part camera composition and part photoshop work. “I was seduced by digital cameras and the flexibility of post production, I couldn’t go back to film,” she explains.

She lives on 50 acres in Walpole and grows most of her subjects in the gardens surrounding her home. Gardening can be quite labor intensive, but she finds it more enjoyable than her previous law career.

Some of her work, like the delphiniums shown here, are not photographed, but start as compositions on the bed of a flatbed scanner. The look, somewhat like a cross between an x-ray and high-key photo, is unique. She explains that it took awhile to develop the technique as most scans would have a black background.

Stalus sells prints and greeting cards with her images on a variety of Web sites including Etsy.com and her own site, jstalusphotographs.com. Her work is available at Imagekind (www.imagekind.com) in a variety of sizes, matted and framed. She is a board member and exhibitor at the Walpole Artisans Cooperative, but the facility is closed for renovations through the summer. – Susan Laughlin