I have sort of a huge brand crush – is that a thing? – on Hart, a trio of Portland-based artists offering a full suite of services: photography, set styling, floral design, hair and makeup. Their work is exactly what I would be doing if I were skilled at, well, anything other than writing about plants. There are so many of their pieces I want to share with you that I didn’t know where to start. So I just picked one.

Below are images from their shoot The Transition, which aims to capture the experience of self discovery. Presented in order, each picture is named for a stage in the process: resistance, exposed, raw, deliverance, trust, truth. Beautiful, don’t you think? (As a side note, those words also appear in alphabetical order.)

The first photo is my favorite – it reminds me of Matthew Barney in the Cremaster Cycle. Do you guys have a favorite, too?

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Previously, I featured New York fashion photographer Torkil Gudnason’s fine art series Electric Blossom. But in case you didn’t get your fill of psychadelic flora, his Hot House Color series offers more of the same.

‘Everything manmade references nature,’ Torkil Gudnason says. The fashion photographer uses exaggerated lighting and colored filters to amplify the verdant fragility of the flowers and plants he photographs. ‘They change and evolve. Not one moment is the same. Sometimes they start to die and sometimes they begin to live’. The resulting images celebrate nature’s endless permutations, evoking millennia of evolution in the curvature of a single stem.

These photos also remind me of the way bees see flowers: because bees are able to see ultraviolet light, their perception of flowers is often very different than ours, and sometimes resembles the almost supernatural hues and patterns of Gudnason’s photographs.

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When I first saw this photo shoot from the ladies over at Gypsy Stone, I thought I might have to justify how it’s plant related. But after I read what photographer Lizz Pennings wrote about the shoot, I knew that wouldn’t be the case:

I’ve always been fascinated by trees. For even longer than I have been fascinated by the ocean. I love their height, the way they tower over you but are never intimidating. Their lushness, the shapes of the branches and how they remind me of the silliest things like ballerinas and witches.

Looking at the photos, which were shot in a retired palm tree farm, it’s easy to see how Pennings incorporates these sentiments. The way she positions the models in front of and behind the fronds, she conjures images of props like surfboards, umbrella, ropes, wings, a veil or a fanciful wig. The intimate relationship she has with this environment is clear:

[It] reminded me of the time I was so blessed to have spent some time in the threatened rainforests of Borneo, where I got to help replant some trees for WWF and their rainforest rejuvenation project. One of the things said by another volunteer when I was there that I will never forget are the words […] “I know I most likely will never be able to return to see the orangutans swinging from the trees that I have planted today… but nothing makes me happier to know that one day my grandchildren will be able to return, and because we all helped them and the forest today, they can still see the orangutans swinging in the trees”. This is why it is our duty, in this vital time, to preserve what we have been so blessed to receive.

And to add an even deeper meaning to the images, Pennings has shot model Elke Kahler wearing bellbottoms made from modal, a fabric created using the cellulose of sustainably grown beech trees. These trees do not require the use of pesticides or traditional irrigation, nor are their fibers processed using harsh chemicals, which makes them an eco-friendly alternative to synthetic materials. Not only does Jennings talk the talk, but she walks the walk – and I think I know just where she’s headed!

Photos © Gypsy Stone

To see more images from the shoot, visit the original blog post here. You can buy the fashions featured here on the Gypsy Stone website.

I was introduced to photographer Michael Winters during our trip to the East Coast this past fall and immediately fell in love with his aesthetic. Skulls, fur and face paint? Yes, please. Michael’s women are raw, edgy and eerie, navigating the post-apocalyptic voodoo wasteland he’s conjured from the landscape surrounding his New Hampshire home. Anybody else suddenly want to take a hike through the woods in some ripped up tights and combat boots?

Photos © Michael Winters

To keep up to date with his work, follow Michael’s Tumblr.

Just a quick post to wish you Happy Holidays and feature these botanically themed Christmas cards from The House That Lars Built! Found over at The Fox In The Pine, which is definitely worth checking out. Cat, the author, shares a few things in common with yours truly, including the Pacific Northwest, a troublesome cat and a love for the holidays. Hope yours are warm and bright!

Photos © The House That Lars Built

You can buy these and more awesome botanical paper products over on The House That Lars Built’s Etsy store.