October Flowers & Autumn Vibes

Photography musings

Hello my flower loving friends,

A short little post today to mark the soon to be end of October and I couldn’t think of a better way to do it than with the last of my dahlias. I say last, they’re still coming but are getting rather soggy now. I wanted to make a simple arrangement for the house with stuff gathered from the garden. The vase is an old one left over from my shop that I just had to keep. I gathered some fallen leaves and cuttings from the elderflower tree, I just love the deep plum colour! My favourite dahlias this year have been Night Silence! They are amazing and make me smile.

I’ve been enjoying using my greenhouse, it’s lovely to have somewhere to escape to if it gets cold or wet and I’m looking forward to using it more as the months progress.

My workbench is made up of old scaffold boards on trestles and makes a good base to style and work on. I’m always looking at what textures I can bring into my images to give them more depth. The layering up of textures/different materials brings a whole other level of interest and is more appealing to the eye than simply a plonked vase of flowers. Images are stories captured in time, make it an interesting one.

I kept my flowers as a jumble of autumn, keeping things casual and not overly fussy- I used a sedum as the base which is a good flower to support dahlias that have a tendency to spin around. The fallen leaves hanging over the side make it feel like a forest floor and the elderflower lifts everything up to sing. In the background is an old draw on it’s side which I love to use as a backdrop and an antique jug in autumnal shades, picked up for around £10 as it has a hairline crack (you can hardly see it). I’m always gathering objects for my photography styling and this is a great time of year to go foraging for fallen branches and seed heads.

My daughter Lilly and I went for a beautiful walk in the woods today. She’s doing a floristry course at the moment. We got chatting about wreath workshops and to be honest - I’m not sure i’m going to run them this year. If I do they will be impromptu. I do have ideas to make my wild wreaths for collection though so if you’d like one of those then get in touch. If you’ve had one from me before you’ll know each one is different from the last and they are wonderfully shabby and wild.

I hope you’re enjoying my newsletters. For me, this feels like a more inclusive and engaging way to connect with you and I enjoy reading your messages and comments.

This week I’ve been working on some little watercolours of autumnal scenes which I will release soon on my website, I’ll let you know when that is.

Enjoy the rest of your week.

Emma x