Janet Bongiovanni
Being born in 1952 in the San Francisco Bay Area provided me
a poignant starting point for life.
The 1960s, this celebrated location, adolescence and
the era's metaphysical emphasis shaped me into a melancholy
and introspective young woman searching for realization.
Throughout the following decades I introduced various behaviors
to quiet the confusion and soothe the vacancy, some were insanely toxic,
and some have been clearly sublime. With thoughtful gratitude,
the tenor of my journey has softened.
Recent times have been
nurturing a newfound balance and strength. My humbling love of nature,
which frequently renders me speechless, and a longing for its expression
motivate my passion for creating photographs. The photos here are taken in the East and I hope to include some new images on my trip home this summer.
I believe photographs afford us a common ground to pause and wonder
at the charming strangeness existing beneath our everyday experience.
Enlarge
Mirror images invoke instant abstracts.
Photographing a scene with a reflection is an opportunity to disassociate from the obvious and take note of another reality.
Order:
Enlarge
I find Bleeding Heart buds difficult to photograph. These charming little flowers exist on woody, angular shoots that seem to have no direction.
I found the repetition of the stem with the curved line of the vase soothing in the midst of the chaotic stems.
Enlarge
Dragonfly:A friend and I noticed a large group of young teenage boys huddled around an iris bed. My first impression was how refreshing to see young men with SLR cameras in a flower garden! As I approached the group, I saw the reason; perched on the tip of an iris bud was a motionless dragonfly.
I waited, somewhat impatiently, for the group to move on and then quickly set my tripod. All the while my fearless subject remained undaunted until my lens was inches from his snarling face.
