This was a bit of a unique project, as the final project involved photography instead of illustrations. This piece was meant to serve as a guide to identifying wild garlic, including how to differentiate its leaves from the quite similar looking leaves of wild chives.

My initial planning for the project. The struggle with this piece was figuring out how to photograph the entire plant from root to leaf in a single image without resting a part of it on a flat surface.

The solution was to drill two holes in a piece of wood and weave a sturdy wire through them to act like a floating shelf to which the specimen could be slid onto. The specimen was procured from my parent’s backyard and pruned down to look as aesthetic as a clump of dirt and weed could possibly look.

Then it was into the studio to photograph. I used a black velvet backdrop to create a deep contrast to the plant. I took a lot of shots from all angles and chose a select few to use in my final piece.

I edited my favorite photos in Camera RAW and compiled them in Photoshop. I then added text, some graphic details, and a little drawing of the wild garlic and chive flowers.

And there you have it: