Intimacy: The Sensual Essence of Flowers

Many of the flowers photographed here are ones with which I was not previously familiar -- especially in close up. It is the combination of incredibly close and detailed photography and a skillful artist's eye for which I was searching. There are many books which accomplish a scientific disection of flowers in close up, but none with the emotional impact Joyce Tenneson's book achieves.

This aptly named book does seem to unveil, to expose the quiet, sensual beauty of flowers. I am a photographer (amateur) of flowers who tries to reveal the veins, crepey folds and layers, shadings and colors, the infinite individuality of flowers. I think this gorgeous book does what I can barely hope to do.

Joyce Tenneson is known as an artistic photographer of people, notably in her black-and-white-book, "Wise Women," a bestseller in 2002. Now she has turned her lens on flowers. The subject is different but the aim is the same, she says--to reveal something deep within. The result is a series of portraits of common garden blooms presented in a n unusual light. Set against a black background, each becomes a study in form and color. Even the dried hydrangea floret seems special.

The photos in Intimacy are distinguished by the subtle richness of the color quality; many other photographers take bright-colored pictures of intimate floral details, but Tenneson's lighting makes these flowers glow almost mystically or recede into mysterious shadow. The standard black backdrop becomes an essential, emotionally involving par of the image.

Joyce Tenneson is not only a gifted photographer, she is also in touch with the secrets of nature as documented in this extraordinarily beautiful, understated book of photographs of flowers. Using a monochromatic background (usually black) Tenneson focuses her eye and lens on the most fragile parts of flowers, irresistibly bringing us into the stamens and pistils at the core of creation or perpetration of flowers. There is something very sensual (in the finest sense of that word) to her work: she is not trying to make her subjects appear as metaphors to human anatomy a la Mapplethorpe - she just lets the flowers inner workings speak eloquently for themselves. Hence the title INTIMACY. But Tenneson does not limit her attention to the reproductive origins of her flowers: simple shots of petals and whole blossoms add to the journey or cycle of life. And sparingly inserted fragments of poetry from the likes of Rachel Carson and ee cummings comment just enough to keep the viewer in tune with the flow of the volume.This is an exquisite book, an ideal gift for those people in your life who flesh out your existence and enhance your world.