In 2008 I went to the Garden Show at the Fairgrounds here in Nashville to get inspired about my gardens. Of course, I had my camera with me and was delighted when I ventured into the black-painted room that hosted the floral competition. Spotlights highlighted the many creations and I came home with this image.

Well, I just loved it and set about to recreate that look at home. And the Laundry Room Series began. As the name implies, I used my laundry room as my studio for this series. It had no window so I could control the light. The top of my dryer made for a good space to set up black backgrounds. Tiny IKEA spotlights became my light source and I crafted a diffuser from tracing paper to keep the light soft. Tissue boxes did double duty as tripods. I always had to be mindful of not stepping in the cats’ litter box (I’m talking a SMALL laundry room here).

I probably continued to work in the laundry room for almost two years. I brought in all kinds of items from nature (and sometimes the grocery store). Mostly I looked for interesting textures or some translucency.

Probably a dozen images eventually made it into an exhibit or two. Now as I am about to retire this series from exhibiting I was looking back into my files and realized that there are many that I really like that have almost never been seen. I thought they deserved a chance to have their moment in the sun, so to speak.

This one, Pears, was probably the first one I did. Many others followed and I had included a few of my unseen favorites.

Submitted by Sandy Burr