Valentine ~ Original 6 foot tall bouquet by Yukiko sets theme for buffet at Smith Ranch Homes

Tall quince bouquet shown above is installed for Valentine’s  in Smith Ranch’s high ceiling dining room, on a buffet counter top — soon to be surrounded with trays of food and beverages.

In homes with regular ceilings, 5′ or 6′ bouquets are often positioned on  large coffee tables.

Either way, Yukiko’s tall designs establish the theme and tone for gatherings of friends and parties.

A Different Valentine ~ Bamboo Ikebana

A regular client in Marin browsed through our “Freestyle Ikebana” tab to find this bamboo ikebana for a distinctive, memorable valentine.  After a few seasonal modifications, it’s ready to go.

Marin Ikebana

Green cymbidium, harakeke, curly willow and winter flowers from Marin County, California, designed by Yukiko.

I say Give Original Bouquet by Yukiko to your Valentine, and 

If your Valentine is in Marin, do Both!

Dramatic Sweep of Roses and Orchids with Marin foliage for Valentine’s

Cymbidium in basket arrangement expresses masculinity in nature.

Succulents, flat pussy willow and curly willow complete the design. 

Big, bold holiday flower arrangements draw special attention from young and old.  Romantic theme of Valentine’s Day blooms as branches of quince bud into full flower in Marin County.

Holiday bouquets are part of Yukiko’s weekly series of five-footers (and larger) arrangements at Smith Ranch in San Rafael – every week for twelve years and counting.

Ranunculus and tulips are hale and hearty this winter and I have used them in these three bouquets with seasonal branches and foliage.

Winter Bulb Flowers Bouquet with Birch Branches

Ranunculus and Lily Grass Bouquet 

Ranunculus and Harakeke Bouquet

Looking ahead to Valentine’s Day (February 12th), Yukiko designed this rose bouquet to fit cheerfully on an office desktop or credenza.  The vase is heavy bottomed glass and the bouquet includes curly willow, seasonal berries and leaves.

Valentine’s Day comes on a weekend this year, so plan to deliver bouquets for Valentines in the workplace on Friday the tenth.

A special client called with a special request for Valentine’s: dozens and dozens of gerbera daisies.
Here it is (32″ tall):

Gerbera Profusion

Residents at Smith Ranch look forward to a new five-foot bouquet at the center of their buffet everyweek.  And here it is for Valentine’s Day.

Valentine Bouquet Five-footer

South Anerican roses, local quince, lilies and “wax flowers” provide the color and the texture of this floral design.  You can also see a selection of other five-footers on my website.

How We Photograph Big Flower Arrangements in Bad Light

• First, we use an antique digital camera, Nikon CoolPix 5000, updated with the manufacturer’s software patch to enable shooting in RAW. Our CoolPix 5000 is one of the oldest, lightest RAW shooters around.  Luckily so, because RAW processing is important for this.
• Next, in an ideal world we would secure the camera to our expensive tripod for shooting.  Got tripod but the buffet is too busy to set it up.  Likewise, to set-up a few studio lights, no way.  So, here’s what we do:
• Set the camera’s file size to RAW and its digital ISO to 800 (yep, eight hundred — makes the picture noisy, speckles, but there’s a reliable way to fix that).
• Set the camera’s other controls to “auto,” but NO flash.
• Then, select the person with the steadiest hands (Yukiko) to sit with her elbows on the table opposite the bouquet and very slowly, lightly squeeze off three or four shots.  In our experience at least one of the four will be sufficiently steady and clear to let us work-up a decent image,
• For photo-editing we use PhotoshopCS (nearly as old as our flower camera) RAW processing, primarily to adjust the light on the bouquet.
• One of the early steps is to use the Noise Ninja plugin (user installed in PhotoshopCS) to reduce or eliminate the noise so that no speckles are apparent to the human eye.  I learned this technique in landscape and wildlife photography where outdoor light is often poor, especially in early morning.
• And then we do the conventional photo edits, selective adjustments (especially where the light is still falling poorly), cropping, sizing, sharpening, etc.

It may seem like an awful lot of trouble at first, but once you get the hang of it, it goes pretty quickly.

Check-out this year’s five-foot Valentine Bouquet, above, and share your comments below.

<a href=“http://technorati.com/claim/ck2n93np2b” rel=“me”>Technorati Profile</a>