The Photography of Susan C. Larkin
Scarlet Runner Bean

Phaseolus coccineus (Scarlet Runner Bean)

by Steven Levinson

Image City Photography Gallery Holiday Show,
December, 2015

One of the components of an excellent photograph is often something termed “gesture”. Most of the time this is applied to photographs of people; however inanimate things can also show gesture. Obviously inanimate objects need to show gesture in a different way.

Susan’s photographs of desiccated parts of plants, using a wonderful series of macro photography techniques, display this concept of gesture in an excellent way. Scarlet Runner Bean lets the eye move along with the curls in the beans leaf forming a closed loop.

To say more about Susan’s technique, she uses her macro photography skills in a way that produces images that show the object in total focus from the front to the back, not an easy task! Setting these photographs against a black background allows the observer to focus solely on the subject of the photograph, the fascinating shapes and the wide variety of tones that are displayed.

Scarlet Runner Bean as well as the rest of the photos in this portfolio go way beyond simply taking a “grab” photograph of something that looks interesting. The photographs are beautifully lit, displaying the beautiful textures of the objects along with the strong compositional skills of the photographer.

These images transcend simply being documentation of parts of plants, which make these photographs something that one would love to have hanging on the wall in their home, possibly as a grouping of several.