Late last spring I heard from Jackie … she had a Simone Rocha dress that needed some flowers and a redhead.

I was dreaming of a frenzied magenta field, clashing patterns, some kind of storm in the calm of a pastoral afternoon.

Driving into the unknown armed with buckets I found a field of white calla lilies and enriched it in a way that made me think of an altar, the end of a certain Almodóvar film that stayed with me through the years and the genres. A hint of trashiness is my amulet.

I like to think of a photo not as a way of capturing what’s already there but of making a new reality.  Becoming something else, seeing oneself in a new light...  It can be temporary or permanent.

Fantasy as a tool of self-transformation, fantasy not simply dreamt but acted upon. And between vision and daily exertion, the flowers I dreamed of are here.

Credits: Art direction and styling in collaboration with Jacqueline Tierney. Model: Lilia. These photos & florals by me.