“I’ve been working on this particular series for about three years, and it’s a marriage of my two loves, photography and a botanical interest in growing exotic flowers.”
Torrance resident Jamie Lavalley currently has some 30 large-format flower portraits (about 30”x40”) on view through early February at Annie Appel’s Gallery 381 in San Pedro. If Old Man Winter is getting you down, this is where you’ll want to set up camp for a few days.
These are literally the pick of the vine, culled from 30,000 images. Lavalley has maybe 200 that he thinks are strong, half of which he feels confident about showing. To say that he’s highly discerning about his subject is an understatement.
Lavalley minored in Fine Art Photography at the University of Oregon and moved to New York City where he spent five years as an assistant to art, glamour, and advertising photographer Uwe Ommer. With the knowledge and expertise gleaned from this apprenticeship, Lavalley relocated to Paris and became a fashion photographer. He shot for British, French, and Italian magazines, which consumed him day and night from his early 20s to his early 40s. Now he’s approaching 60 and working in the corporate business world. The passion for the exquisite image, however, remains vital. Here’s the pudding, and here’s the proof.
Petal to the mettle
“The most important aspect of my photography,” Lavalley says, “is that there’s a connectivity that draws [the viewer] into a perspective with nature that you just don’t normally see every day. Things you normally do not experience, you experience, and I think that’s a wonderful thing.” Much of this has to do with the magnification; and suddenly the grace, the beauty, the dynamic of the flower is impossible to ignore.
“A lot of the flowers I grow myself,” he says; “others are from growers who are friends of mine.” His favorites? “The three flowers that I like to photograph mostly are chrysanthemums, dahlias, and epiphyllums.”
With so many images to choose from, how do you decide which ones are acceptable, and which ones don’t make the cut?
“Like in any kind of art form,” Lavalley replies, “it’s a combination of light, space, technique – all arriving at the perfect, decisive moment where you get it. It just tells you, it speaks to you.” And speaks to the viewer as well. “Because that’s the whole point, to try to get that connectivity to nature that is special.”
Just as there are people who think that their dog can paint better than Picasso, so there are people who can’t imagine that pointing a camera at a flower — say cheese mister tulip — is such a big deal.
“It’s hard to make a flower look special; it’s challenging.” Lavalley’s advice to those who presume otherwise? “Just go try; you’ll see how easy it is.”
He’s good natured about all of this, but one senses something of the perfectionist that emerged from all those years in Paris shooting ads for Renault, Clarins perfume, and the Printemps department store chain.
“With one particular flower I’ll shoot it five, six, seven ways,” Lavalley says, “and then decide if any of them work. Sometimes I experiment in color, sometimes in black and white; sometimes I add light to change the color.”
And, yes, those years of fashion photography have also honed his aesthetic and his eye for detail.
“The way I shoot flowers, they’re portraits,” Lavalley explains. “They’re very similar to how I shot fashion models. You find a pose that lends itself for the best perspective of how that flower is going to look the best. There are certain flowers that I have in my show that remind me of ballerinas.
“Every flower has something about it,” he continues, “whether it be the color, the shapes of the inside of the flower, the leaves if you backlight it a certain way, that accentuate its beauty. Part of the experimentation in taking the photograph is to find that magic connection, that link, to its nicest asset. When you do, they’re wonderful little works of art, windows to the world or why we love nature. That’s how I see them. Let’s put it this way, I’d say they’re like the eyes of nature.”
Group portraits, however, these are not.
“Most of the time it’s just a single flower,” he says, “because their strength and their beauty is enough. All you need is one; it has its own integrity.”
A sunburst of color
Not surprisingly, Jamie Lavalley is at home when he’s not at home, when he’s outdoors with his camera. There’s a family getaway just above Point Reyes National Park in northern California that he hightails it to several times a year. He appreciates nature photographers like Eliot Porter as well as those stalwarts of an older tradition, Alfred Steiglitz and Edward Steichen and their colleagues in the early 20th century.
“Now that I don’t shoot people anymore, it’s something I’m drawn to,” he says. “I enjoy the peace and solitude.”
Lavalley learned many of the tools of the trade when he worked with Uwe Ommer in New York. In particular, “he taught me a lot about color. Color and light are very important in any photograph. My sense of color, I think, is pretty dynamic.”
This may be why he’s considering hopping on a plane this spring and flying over the ocean, headed west.
“I plan to go to Hawaii and see what I can do on one or two of the islands. As a photographer you’re always looking for a different subject or a different challenge or a new horizon to explore. It’s the fun of it. I love going to places I’ve never been before.”
Naturally, whether the flower is shot on his doorstep or in the Jurassic Park-like wilds of Kauai, Lavalley is concerned with the finished result, how it enlivens and flourishes in the space before us.
“All the photographs are printed on watercolor paper,” he explains, “which lends itself to looking more painterly than normal paper does. It tends to bleed in the colors, and I like that effect. I think it lends itself very well to photographing flowers.”
Despite his corporate job, 60 hours weekly let’s not forget, Lavalley says he’s always thinking about taking pictures. “The passion’s exactly the same,” he insists.
“There isn’t a week that’s gone by in the last five years that I haven’t gone out and made a serious attempt – at least three, four, five hours a week – just to make photographs. I find it very exciting.”
Why it’s exciting is evident when one leaves winter for spring and steps into Gallery 381, located at 381 W. Seventh St., San Pedro, which is open by appointment but specifically from 6 to 9 p.m. during the First Thursday Art Walk on February 2. The show closes shortly thereafter. During the summer, Lavalley will exhibit at the Art-A-Fair in Laguna Beach. In the meantime, the days are shorter and sometimes gray, but now we have something to brighten them, don’t we? (310) 902-8503 or go to jamielavalley.com.
