Preservation photos by Blake Little

Photographer Blake Little has shot a series of humans and animals covered with honey. The images were created for his book and exhibition at the Kopeikin Gallery last Spring Mar.7- Apr.18, 2015. The Preservation Book was edited by Bil Yoelin

Here is the video of his shoot, keep in mind that some of the bodies are nude.

Instagram

Yesterday, after brunch, I installed Instagram on the I-pad just before heading out to work in the garden. Instagram is a free photo app fun that lets you add a filter to transform the image, something I normally do in photoshop.

I had thought that it was only available to those who had smart phones, until I realized that the I-pad will accept the app, even though its not a phone. Hooray! The only thing that I am a bit skeptical about is that I've heard that Instagram keeps all rights to your images, that sucks and thus will require some mindfulness with using it.

Ebb and Flow

I'm focusing on the positives of ebb and flow today, although, I much prefer flow. Flow being more aligned with water element where as ebb is part of elemental earth. Both have their benefits, its just a matter of where one is standing and perceiving. After all, perception is an act of creation. Oh...and how auspicious, my favorite fragrance lately has been Chiaroscuro, which is all about the dark and the light. Gee, Spirit must be telling me something.

I normally shoot my photos in the early morning and/or late afternoon next to the big window in the living room. During the holidays that spot was taken for the Christmas tree so I had to look for other options, like the studio where the top and two bottom images were taken.

The other day on a whim I did some shots on the other side of the living room next to the big sliding glass doors, on one of the big "fulfillment" tables that were brought into the space in October. So, this is my new favorite spot, which is fabulous because there is lots of space and the northern light is pretty good all day long.

The palette of essences I work is constantly in danger and thus the fragrances will shift depending mostly on what I can get a hold of at any given time. Sometimes essences disappear off the market completely, while at other times its just a matter of hunting them down and having the resources to purchase large amounts.

A huge box of aromatics I recently ordered arrived at the door today. It's filled to the brim with a plethora of essential oils, absolutes and C02 extracts from all parts of the planet. Many of them are to make existing perfumes, some of which have been out of stock, like Aurora liquid and Gracing the Dawn. Others are for upcoming deliciousness yet to be unveiled.

Last night I ordered yet another huge batch of essences. I've been a little in terror at the amount of money that I've been spending on raw materials lately. It's great to get things in larger amounts because they are less expensive and then you have them, without having to re-order all the time. However, I'm no bank. This living on the edge, ebb phase of the year, like winter wears thin, I can't seem to get use to it.

Now that the sun is out, I'm warm and have had lots of good news today I'm feeling much better about everything. Although the ebb phase might be part of the reality at least I can shift my mind into a different gear.

Bienvenue!

The new camera arrived yesterday via Fed Ex and I am absolutely thrilled with it. The camera is a Canon Rebel T2i, we choose this one because I can use it to take my product photos and create films. For my birthday this year I told Greg that more than anything else I wanted a camera, given that Eve was leaving and taking her trusty Nikon with her. Thus Greg recruited friends and family to pitch in and wahlah, manifestation. Thank you everyone who helped out, I so very grateful and happy, happy to be shooting again!

At first when we were researching cameras I was pretty set on getting a Nikon since I've been a Nikon gal most of my life and really liked Eve's camera. However, Ben mentioned that the Canon is the one used in lots of video and film these days. After exhaustive research online and speaking with other photographers we settled on the Canon, we made the right choice, it feels great in my hands and is very intuitive.


Here are my first few shots yesterday afternoon walking around the garden. Today I've been shooting To Bee and Hedera helix photos. The plan is to introduce Hedera helix to you are in the morrow, Friday, now to go find some ivy for the photos.


Images: 1. Self portrait at the front door of our woodland home, 2. Cactus and 3. Dried leaves in the garden.

Honey, Honey

The To Bee natural perfume LookBook is coming along quite fabulously but it is in need of more imagery. Since this fragrance is so new, I don't quite have the plethora of illuminations as the other fragrances. Thus I'm taking advantage of Eve's camera, before it leaves with her to college in Vermont, and taking some photos of honey and honey comb.


To Bee liquid perfume flacon is now back in stock!

Worldwide Bee-ing

Here in the woodland we suited up last Saturday afternoon to check the bees and add another box. The girls were substantially calmer than in March when Roberta and Ceebs came by to do a hive check. Greg was a little un-nerved by the loud communal humming that radiated out from the hive as we quickly worked to add the forth box.

Regrettably they were building in a zig zag pattern in the third box. Rather than making a mess of capped honey and brood we choose to let them bee and only moved one frame up into the new box. Normally one would move about four of the outer frames up to encourage them to expand into new quarters. These gals are pretty focused, unlike our other hives, thus I'll betcha they started moving up immediately.


They now have four boxes and will more than likely need a fifth within a month or two. Fingers crossed that they'll have some extra honey to share with us by September. We will only take honey as long as they have enough of there own to survive the dearth which begins in August/September when nectar begins to run low. We prefer our girls feed themselves from their own honey rather than take all their stores and feed them sugar water, like the big industrial bee keepers.

Meanwhile, photographer Eric Tourneret has some amazing photos of beekeepers all over the world at his site The Bee Photographer. I highly suggest going to check it out!

The opening image is a graphic created by using photoshop to emboss the bee graphic into an existing photo, a la letterpress. I've been super bee-sy lately doing a lot of graphics for a cool little project and upcoming products. More to be revealed soon.

Page by Page

Here are the first set of photos for the Page 47 botanical perfume in hte new liquid format. I'm doing a few more today and will have the illumination by Maestro Spalenka to share soon too.

"Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I used shells, vanilla beans and jasmine flowers in the imagery since those are all notes within the perfume. The shells are for the "beachy" quality, which reminds me of those youthful days spent on Malibu Beach during the summer as a junior lifeguard. The aroma is how my skin would smell after a day of sun, sand and surf. Not sure if this aspect will be revealed on others skin, I'm super curious, thus please let me know either by leaving a comment or sending me a private note.




Although the nectarous, amber fragrance doesn't officially debut until the Full Flower Moon on May 17th, I've started listing the various sizes it in the E-shop for those who desire it right away.


There are more photos from yesterdays shoot on my Flickr collection, I took quite a lot.

In the Pink

"Earth laughs in flowers."
~Ralph Waldo Emerson, Hamatreya

Giveaway winner!

The winner of the giveaway for 1 gram bottle of Tangent Botanical Perfume is Katie! Congratulations, I'll be sending off the vial as soon as I receive the shipping data. Many thanks to everyone who participated, I'm really grateful for each of you that stopped by. Please keep in eye out for a giveaway for a vial of Cimbalom, the floriental with the hand crafted Jasmine sambac tincture.


Photos ©Roxana Villa

O is for Oak

Q stands for Quercus agrifolia the botanical name for the coastal live oak of California. At this time of the year the oaks are very heavy with acorns, proving a very busy time for the local squirrels. I've been dutifully gathering both acorns and acorn caps daily from the Quercus agrifolia on my property. The caps are for a upcoming project while the acorns are for perfume packages and photo shoots. As of yet there are no acorns from the Quercus lobata, a deciduous native oak. Those acorns are much larger than the ones from the agrifolia, hope they manifest soon as I'd like to get a photo with lots of varieties of acorns and leaves.


Yesterday as I photographed a bottle of Q liquid organic perfume I saw the stack of wood type letters that Ben had brought over the weekend. It occurred to me that yes "Q is for Quercus" BUT "O is for Oak" and there were lots of O's in the pile. Perhaps they are zeros, in either case, they like like O's and will suffice. Here's one...more to come soon.


I just listed the honey pot tub of Q solid natural perfume in the E-shop. The actual amount by weight in these tubs is between 3.6 and 4.7 grams. The solid compact version contains about 5.3 grams. Each one varies slightly because I pour each and every solid perfume myself. There's no machine or robot making them with an exact measuring devise...at least not yet.


Photos: Q organic, botanical perfume, Acorn caps, Acorns on wood type and the new 5 gram Q natural perfume all ©RoxanaVilla

Sweetness and Light

There are two ways of spreading light; to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.

~Edith Wharton

I've been re-doing many perfume photos, getting them more aligned with my color palette and core essence. Some items I have shot hundreds of times and not quite captured the right mood. It's a bit tricky because not all the plant materials contained within the perfumes are available year round. For example the California native rose, Rosa californica, in my garden did not bloom this year. Thus my dear friend Meghan brought me a few flowers from Malibu lake so that I could shoot some photos. Lately the Jasmine sambac has been in abundance, but today it has become obvious that within the next few days that window will close.


The window that has most recently opened is native acorns from the various Quercus agrifolia around me. They are bright green at the moment and vary in shape and size according to the tree. Soon they will begin to turn toward brown, offering another variation of hues to work with.


The color palette above is based on the trinity of my hair, eye and skin tones. This is the spectrum which Mother Nature painted me with as I came into the world. As you can see the hues are somewhat muted with a mix of cool and warm. The colors are associated with the quality of light of Summer and a pinch of Autumn firelight. My core essence is associated with vintage, antique, the feminine, romance, texture and complexity. I weave those aspects with my color palette into the photos. It's not about what is "in style" or "fashionable" but what is aligned with my spirit. Conveniently natural botanical perfume works well with those aspects, as I continue to bring light to the value of nature and pure, vital perfume.

The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light.
~Matthew Arnold

Pikake

"Ah, these jasmines, these white jasmines!..."

~ Excerpt from The First Jasmines by Rabindranath Tagore

The fragrant little Pikake flowers continue blooming daily in the garden. Each day I go out to check if it will be a harvesting day or not. Today was such a day.


Before placing the delicate little blossoms into the tincture I take a few photos. This is the only time of year I have the opportunity to take such photos. Did you know it takes approximately eight thousand of these flowers to obtain one ounce of the precious Jasmin sambac absolute?


For the tincture I swap out the spent flowers and replace with a new fresh crop. The spent flowers I put into another jar with my pure grain alcohol just in case there is still volatile aromatics to be extracted. Today I sampled a bit of the botanical perfume tincture and am happy to report that the aroma is very fine like that of the fresh florets.


Although I may not make it to Hawaii this summer, I do have a very lovely reminder here of the Hawaiian flowers referred to as Pikake.

Ovata

While Greg and I were on our evening walk through the chaparral a few days ago I noticed that the Sugar Bush shrub, a native known as Rhus ovata, was in full bloom. I went back yesterday morning to get a few sprigs of the pretty white flowers for the photo above.

As I came up to the plant I heard a tremendous buzzing and saw that it was filled with happy little honey bees gathering the botanical nectar. How marvelous! Where as the non-native Oleanders across the street had no honey bees what so ever. Conclusion: plant Rhus ovata and encourage others to do the same.

Photo ©Roxana Villa

Happy, Happy!

Happy 4th of July and cheers to Freedom!

This image above was sent to us by our cousin Rex in San Francisco. Curious about it, I noticed the word Shorpo on the bottom corner and discovered a historic photo archive.

Stars and Stripes: 1915
Washington, D.C., circa 1915. "Birth of the American flag."

Here are a few others.


Fourth of July, 1887
"This family photo was taken on July 4th, 1887. My grandfather is seated on the floor at front left. That's his helpful dog next to him holding a hammer in its mouth. He was twenty years old in 1887, but he was already a contractor and this was his crew. The building they were constructing was the AT&SF train station at San Dimas, California."

This one below is my favorite:


An Old-Fashioned Fourth
"July 4, 1922. Takoma Park neighborhood of Maryland and the District of Columbia. National Photo Company."

The scent of the 4th of July for me is the beach, firecrackers, hot dogs & pie, and a good time. On further pondering what is the aroma of freedom? Perhaps an essential oil, or synergy, that makes YOU feel free. I'm thinking something that opens up the lungs and gets one breathing deeply, like frankincense, the conifers, eucalyptus and rosemary.

May Flowers: A weed is but an unloved flower.

Even in the most unlikely places beauty presents itself. Such is the topic of Kelsey's beautiful biopic on the unloved flower, weeds.

"A weed is but an unloved flower."
~Ella Wheeler Wilcox

All the images are from antique postcards from Argentina sent to and from family members on my mothers side ©RoxanaVilla.

Silver and Chalk

The invention of photography began with the discovery that a mixture of silver and chalk darkens when exposed to light. Eventually this resulted in the photographic process termed daguerréotype.


In between formulating and making perfumes, packaging orders, and marketing I continue to photograph my work. Constantly searching for the perfect photo to capture the essence of the aromatic plant elixirs I create.


The antique postcards have been a God-send and continue to find their way into the photos as valuable backgrounds. I am enamored with the beautiful script of each of the cards, I'd like to find a typographic font that looks like this.

Of the perfume imagery the first of Q natural perfume, a solid handmade unguent using my own infusion of oak leaves. The word unguent stems from the Latin unguere meaning to anoint. Historically unguents go back to ancient Egypt and the Roman Empire referring to a semi solid paste, in this case a cream perfume.

The second photo is of three 1 gram vials of pure perfume, this is a new set requested by a customer and seems an excellent idea. Since Mothers Day is coming up and the Natural Perfume Locket is such a nice gift for mom, I took some new photos of the locket.


The fourth photo below, is of liquid Chaparral® with a sprig of sage from my native garden. Which reminds me, I'm going to go out there and count how many different types of sage I have in the garden.


Images:
L’Atelier de l'artiste by Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre (1787-1851)
Perfume photos by moi, Roxana Villa.