Stand in any forest and look up, and it’s hard not to be mesmerized by the swaying of tall trees and their elegant canopies casting shade onto the woodland floor. But imagine being an ant or beetle and peering up at the stems of wild geraniums, garlic, or buttercups and experiencing the same sensation. For photographer Theo Bosboom, this ground-level view of flowers and plants gave rise to a series that captures them in the way we might photograph a grove of towering, ancient sequoias.
Traversing local landscapes around his home in the Netherlands and sometimes venturing across the border into Germany or Belgium, Bosboom explores forests, dunes, public parks, roadside verges, and virtually any place that flowers grow. These excursions also sparked concern at the lack of pollinators he found among the flowers. “At times, it was eerily quiet,” he shares in the preface for his book, Flowerscapes, A Bug’s Eye View. “This matches recent studies showing that the numbers of flowers and insects have declined sharply across Western Europe over the past decades.”
There are a lot of reasons for the steep drop in insect populations, not just in Europe but around the world. Most of the reasons stem from human activities such as agriculture, pesticides, urban development and habitat destruction, pollution, and changing temperatures as a result of the escalating climate crisis.
Bosboom finds reasons to hope, however. He has observed how the Netherlands has adopted more environmentally friendly road management practices, and how people are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of native plants and wildflowers in supporting not only insect populations but entire ecosystems.
The diversity and resilience of flowers really struck a chord with Bosboom, who says, “The endlessly surprising perspectives completely captivated me, and I found myself constantly marvelling at their beauty, elegance, and strength.” He was also drawn to reducing his environmental impact by working more locally, sticking to destinations he could reach on foot or by bike or with just a short drive.
Purchase Flowerscapes, A Bug’s Eye View on Bosboom’s web shop, where you can also purchase prints, and explore much more of his work on Instagram.
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