This diptych explores the parallel of life and death through the quiet language of flora.
On the right, vibrant green branches twist and tangle — a lush representation of life in full bloom. Each leaf, each branch reaches outward, intersecting and overlapping like the choices we make and the people we meet. Life is not linear; it is a weaving of connections, vibrant and evolving.
On the left, roses in various stages of decay evoke the beauty of impermanence. Their withering petals remind us that death, for many, is not sudden — it is gradual, graceful, and natural. We bloom, we age, and eventually, we return to the earth from which we came.
Together, these images portray not an end, but a continuum — an intimate cycle of emergence and fading, where beauty resides in every stage.
Decay
Emerge
These images belong to the Sangfroid series, though they were initially created during an experiment in color grading. The deep reds and offbeat tones were chosen intuitively — not to symbolize anything specific, but in playfulness, settling into something uncanny. What emerged is a quietly surreal scene, something between reality and a darker fairytale.
While capturing these scenes, I was struck by the sense of path — both images hold their own variation of one. In the first, my eye follows the log forward, disappearing into dense foliage beyond, as if wondering what might lie ahead. In the second, my gaze starts in the distance, drawn through the arching branches toward the foreground, then circling back again. These images inherently felt whimsical to me — like fairies live there. In editing, I paid attention to the glowy, ethereal light. I played with colors based on how they affected the light in the images, and I liked red the most.
The images now evoke the feeling of an alternate reality — like portals to another land, full of mystery and magic and wonder- maybe even a little sinister. It holds the tone of a grown-up Alice in Wonderland, or an alternate reality where magic and rot walk hand in hand; quietly alive with strangeness.
Mushroom (Red Version)
Earth (Red Version)