Marty Strecker, Natures Beauty -connecting with Flora (PORTRAIT 2021)

As we are all created by a universal energy, we as humans with an intellect and the ability to choose to be, or shape ourselves into what ever we want, differ from the botanical elements around us. They have a genetic code that determines what they will grow into. The idea is to be able to appreciate the mundane and ordinary botanical wonders around us, to reimagine it as an extension of us. So by me making the choice to combine different elements of nature, we can highlight the notion of building ourselves to suit our own passions. The choice not to choose and allow our path to be dictated by our environment (people's opinions and places) ends up with us being lost and confused and not our true spirit and self. Note. The botanical elements featured here are all from our backyard, weeds, leaves, fungi, native flowers and fallen nests from our trees. The image with the Sunbird flying to the entry of it's nest is a composite. I took the image of the sunbird with her second nest and layered her into the portrait with her first nest that she had abandoned. # images from a larger series of work.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.