This is the first in a four-part series reflecting on this year’s Orchid Daze, a day that began in wonder and unfolded into something far more meaningful.

There are places that become part of you.

For me, the Orchid House at the Atlanta Botanical Garden during Orchid Daze is one of them.

Each year, when Orchid Daze returns, I feel that familiar pull, a rising anticipation of stepping into warmth, color, and life all at once. It’s not just the orchids, we already know they are breathtaking. It’s the feeling of entering a space where time seems to pause and everything invites you to look a little closer.

This year felt different from the start.

I went in carrying something new, not just my camera, but a way of seeing I’ve been cultivating. In the weeks leading up to the visit, I had been shaping ideas into checklists (anyone who knows me knows I’ve always loved a good list). One lives permanently in my mind from the Before the Photograph checklist I wrote, a philosophy that reminds me to slow down and let seeing come before capturing. The other came with me that day, a simple shot checklist to make sure I explored all the kinds of images I wanted to capture in the Orchid House.

I was also experimenting with a new lens, the Moment 58mm for my iPhone. I was curious how it might change the way I moved through the space. What I didn’t expect was how much I would love the results, the detail, the texture. Every composition asked for a little more intention, a little more patience, but boy did it pay off. I’ll show you more from this lens further in the series, so keep an eye out.

Instead of simply photographing orchids, I found myself noticing textures. The softness of petals against the sharpness of pine. The velvety curve of a slipper orchid surrounded by tiny, floating blossoms. Smooth surfaces meeting dangerous edges. Everywhere I looked, there were relationships waiting to be seen.

And somewhere between the warmth of the greenhouse and the excited hum of visitors moving through the space — people pausing, sharing their wonder — the day began to unfold into something more than a photo outing.

Walking into the Orchid House always feels like crossing a threshold. The air shifts first, it’s warmer, denser, carrying that unmistakable greenhouse humidity that settles on your skin and lens alike. And then the color takes over. Orchids everywhere. Not arranged politely on a table or tucked into corners, but rising in walls and layers, cascading from the ceiling, rising from the ground, hanging in rows that stretch upward and outward all at once.

It isn’t a quiet beauty. You don’t stand back and observe it, you step into it. Petals brushing the edges of your vision, color unfolding in every direction, surrounded by every shade of green imaginable. For a moment, it’s almost overwhelming, the kind of overwhelm that makes you slow down, breathe deeper, remember why you brought your camera in the first place:

not to document them,
but to simply meet them.

It became an immersion. I found myself lost in seeing differently.

In the weeks ahead, I’ll be sharing more from that day. The images, the surprises, and the ways it continues to shape how I see.