Flowers in Provence

While the vegetation of Provence isn't lush as a rain forest it certainly produces beautiful flowering plants. As an assignment, my photo class had to focus on the natural world and while shooting for this assignment I noticed the amount of purple flowering plants. I suppose the amount of iron in the soil creates a lot of purple flowers.

The three images of purple flowers are just a few of the many other varieties in the region. The first image of red-violet flowers was on a hike down the foot path to Bonnieux, it was morning after breakfast and the light was lovely at that time. It was a good day to go because the night before it had rained so there was extra dew on the leaves of the plants. I found this little patch of weeds and loved the color contrast of the flowers and how the light illuminated some areas but shaded others. It created this extra depth within the photo. The other two photos were also on hikes, the tall flowering plant was on an afternoon hike in a more aired area that had less trees, where the low lying flowering ivy was on the other side of the mountain in a heavily wooded area. These flowers easily catch your eye amidst the dark green and browns of the garrigue. Though it may be an obvious choice for a subject of a photo, I think they are unique to this area and represent Provence as a fertile and peculiar land.

On the subject of what makes Provence different, I'd like to talk about the other two photos. Provence is heavily farm land and has a warm climate suitable for cherry trees. Rows and rows of these flowering trees stretch endless throughout Provence and especially in the Luberon. The beginning of April seems to be their main blossoming time and luckily we here in Lacoste get to see it. I've only had short encounters with orchards in the United States (not counting oranges) and I have come to enjoy them more and more. The photo of the cherry tree orchard is also on the same foot path to Bonnieux, also taken that morning. I was delighted with how the light shown through the with flowers of the trees. On the other hand, with the last photo of moss on a rock, I took this photo because of the textures of the moss and rocks. Something you see often in Provence, due to the aired climate, is this multi-colored squishy moss that absorbs the water that comes pouring out of the rocks here. This was at Forte De Buoux on a class field trip and it was hard not to notice all the moss on the stones there. I had to climb a bit to find this specific moss though, its different from the kind that is closer to the ground as it isn't as leafy or as green. Though it isn't one of my strongest photos, I have a strange attachment for it and find it rather soothing to look at. All in all the nature assignment was not quite the success as the urban assignment, likely because I enjoy to photograph architecture more, however I was able to see first hand the landscape and vegetation of Provence, which is undeniably valuable.