With Natural Light and Flowers as Her Muse, This Artist Captures the Beauty and Joy of Nature

Text by Bethany Adams 

Ali Lanenga rediscovered her love of art during a period of darkness. In the midst of her struggle with postpartum depression, the gift of a camera from her husband and the offer of tutelage by an art teacher marked a turning point. “He took it upon himself to teach me how light worked,” Ali says. “And I guess it was through the process of learning how to use a camera again and learning to use light that I finally found my own again.”

In the years since, the Oregon artist has taken her skills and, combining them with a longtime love of gardening, learned to use them to spread that light. “I think that there’s a lot of sadness and turmoil in the world,” Ali says. “And when I think about the things I want to create and put into the world, I just want them to be hopeful and [to] help other people feel joy and gratitude.”

Ali starts working on her pieces a year in advance, from planning next year’s garden to harvesting the blooms for her studio. “It takes me about four hours to build a photograph,” she says. Drawing from the Japanese style of floral arranging known as ikebana, she builds her arrangements on flower frogs against the backdrop of an empty wall. “I only photograph using natural light, so I build the photograph that I think I want to make, and then I wait until the light is just right and the blooms have opened,” she says.

After a digital editing process aimed at making sure every detail reads correctly, the images are printed on German-made Hahnemühle paper that Ali notes is uncommon for photography. “It has this lightly defined felt structure,” she says. “A lot of people will mistake them for a fine art drawing or painting, because it’s not on the typical paper that people would associate with photography.”

Ali’s subject matter calls back to her childhood, which she spent among acres of wildflowers at the base of a mountain in northern Idaho—and it’s an influence that has obviously persisted. “I get really bogged down reading the news . . . but when I think about being in the garden and planting bulbs in the fall so that I can have a really abundant spring, that gives me a lot of hope,” she says. Through her floral photography, Ali continues to cultivate that hope, sharing the light she found in her own dark time.

For more information, visit alilanenga.com.