I’ve been doing a great deal of black and white work for my forthcoming book from Monacelli Press, so its nice to take a color break with a color image, even though the color is on black, and also on white—so color and black and white!

In times of trouble, both personal and for the world, what better to turn to than flowers? There’s nothing like spending time arranging, photographing, and processing a floral panorama to help with serenity and steady the nerves.

Roughly speaking, the image title translates from the Latin to “Let’s take flowers with us and dance!” If you check out the exposure and processing info below, you’ll see this is one floral dance that took a great deal of work. To quote the American poet Randall Jarrell, “Art being bartender is never drunk.”

Related image: Garden Party.

Exposure and processing info: Nikon D810, Zeiss Otus 1.4/55 ZF.2, photographed on a light box, eighteen exposures (photographed in two panels, left and right, each panel nine exposures with shutter speeds from 1/8 of a second to 15 seconds), each exposure at f/16 and ISO 64, tripod mounted; exposures converted from RAW using Adobe Camera RAW and Nik HDR Efex Pro, and combined in Photoshop; processed in Photoshop with help from Nik Color Efex Pro, Topaz Adjust, Topaz Simplify, and Topaz Glow; black version created using an LAB L-channel inversion in Photoshop.