White Flowers are for Peace

These beautiful flowers were given to me for my birthday and when I decided to photograph them I was not thinking about Ukraine or the war just the beauty of the ranunculous, which is also known as the Persian buttercup. Then I honed in on the petals and the hydrangea blooms for contrast and then suddenly I was reminded that white flowers are used in peace events, and they are used at funerals. I stopped my first design and then thought about how to express what I was feeling because Ukraine was suddenly large in my heart and mind. I darkened the edges of the image with uneven tones, then added the bright colour across the top, like fire or flame. Now, I had an image which felt, to me at least, like it caught how I was feeling: loving kindness for all those in Ukraine tinged with fire for the perpetrators. A friend of mine noticed that the green of the hydrangea offers hope; new growth. A heartwarming thought.