In this series, Pondering Eden, I create digitally altered nature photographs of flowers and plants plucked from my rural environment. I draw inspiration from my lifelong preoccupation with collecting and displaying natural found ephemera, while highlighting my desire to create images that read more like paintings or illustrations rather than simple photographs.
Light, shadow, and sometimes color are used to layer dozens of carefully edited images together, which echoes an altered reality of both truth and illusion. Each newly created configuration becomes much like a shadow box of my most cherished treasures, symbolizing my desire to protect the natural world I so revere.
Specimen
Sunrise Blooming
Pondering Eden
Marianne Dalton
I have been a visual fine artist in painting for much of my creative life, and in recent years, I have added writing and fine art photography to my repertoire. Now, in the Autumn of life, I approach my photo-work and writing from a more heightened awareness. A vision rooted in life’s fleeting evanescence of both the human condition and the natural world and how they parallel each other. Creative nonfiction is the opening of a portal into my past. I approach each story much like I start a painting or take a photograph as I carefully choreograph and construct every word and phrase. As I build each story, I recognize I am just a living artifact of past lives bursting to be revealed. A published author of several creative nonfiction stories, numerous literary journals have also published my fine art photography. Please visit my website to learn more and see my many projects.