DYING ROSES

'Where they had opened, their petals were stained with that burning rose-colour which is always gone by noon, -- a dye made of sunlight and morning and moisture, so intense that it cannot possibly last. . . must fade, like ecstasy'. Willa Cather, A Lost Lady This project aims at revealing the sad beauty of dying. To achieve this, I chose to photographically follow the passing away of roses picked from the rosebush in our garden. Especially the decay of red roses is spectacular due to the dramatic color shift they go through. The flower’s color changes from red through graduations of rose, magenta and yellow to pale brown. Just like in a dying face, almost all color fades away. Only in the face of a rose this takes months to occur. At the same time the velvet glow and the smooth texture of the petals wilts away into an obsolete wrinkled skin, still impressive by its solemn beauty. Thoughest thing to achieve in this project was to keep the petals together to the very end. Of the roses I started with only one I was able to save the final stage – more or less....