So Damn Haphy.

Hillary Waters Fayle creates ‘Portraits of Place’ from seeds, foliage, and petals

The artist has long worked with botanicals and other organic materials, notably embroidering foraged leaves and feathers with geometric designs. With the series Portraits of Place, which she’s been pursuing for the past six years, Fayle arranges individual petals and leaves into intricate, symmetrical, mandala-like compositions on acrylic.

She starts by collecting and drying botanicals from specific locations, such as Grace Farms Foundation in New Canaan, Connecticut, or Maymont Park in Richmond, Virginia. These are then laid onto watercolor paper that’s been painted with UV-sensitive iron salts. After being left out in the sun, these result in the bright blue cyanotypes that chronicle the outlines—perhaps one could even say the spirit—of the distinctive layouts.

“The way these portraits illustrate a very particular place and time via botany can be a way to define the relationship that the people of that place have with the land—almost like a modern-day florilegium,” Fayle tells.

Scans from “Nevski Night,” a 1977 collection of nighttime cityscapes in the Nevski district of St Petersburg.

There honestly are not a lot of well-known Soviet photo books so I was very pleased when I came across this seemingly unknown and innocuous book and saw what was inside.