International Garden Photograper of the Year -- Rachel Warne

Well, not exactly. The latest issue of Gardens Illustrated has a short piece on Rachel Warne that caught my eye.

Ms. Warne won the 2nd place in Best Garden Photographer's Association Portfolio Award category for he Autumn Study, part of the IGPOTY -- click on winners, then click on portfolio. The aster, above looks almost hand colored. Here is her artist's statement:

"I wanted to make a study of plants outside their usual environment. The plants were all gathered from my neighbourhood – from the forest, the sides of roads and even someone's front garden. Although they are all dead, photographing them is a way of bringing them back to life."

The back story is that Warne was ill for a time and while she was recovering -- she's fine now -- she collected plant material from East London and brought them indoors and made these wonderful images with a light box. I love the beech, above. Do visit her website, it's quite lovely.
Do you love to put these on your nose in late spring? I do. There's an incredible likeness to a colored pencil botanical in the image above. Reminds me of mouse ears.