Perspective

Perspective makes all the difference. As I walked through the flower garden at a Napa Valley nature preserve last weekend snapping pictures I was taken by these brilliant orange flowers. My friend called them can-cans. They do bring to mind the bright swirling skirts of dancing girls with the ruffly apricot surface of their petals swaying in the breeze.

Perspective is one of my favorite words. I use it with regard to something every day. After years of playing with its effect in my work and life I've come to appreciate and employ its power on a regular basis.

Perspective is elemental in the creative process. My work with clients, my writing and most recently, my photography offer my perspective on what is. As we deliberately dance with an object or an idea, turn it around, look at it from close and far, inside and out, above and below, we see aspects and points of view unavailable when approached in a rote fashion.

I took many pictures of can-cans surrounded, as they were, by the other flowering bushes and plants. Their unique beauty didn't stand out as I saw them with my eye, however, until I crouched down and shot this picture at an unusual angle with the backdrop of the sky elevating and accentuating their moment in the sun.

Life in perspective. It's all in how you look at it.