Flower photography blooms into broadcaster Diana Pierce’s second act

CATHY WURZER: I know many of you remember watching Carol Levin's legendary anchor team of Paul Majors and Diana Pierce. Paul and Diana have retired, but Diana specifically finds herself in another field, at times, literally in a field or most often in gardens. Di has started a new endeavor. She and her husband traveled around the country capturing stunning landscape photographs. She eventually narrowed her focus to flowers. And now, as of the last few weeks, Diana Pierce is writing a newsletter called Blooming, with stories about flowers and people who tend to them. Diana Pierce is on the line. Oh, my friend, it's great to hear your voice. How have you been?

DIANA PIERCE: It's great to hear from you, Cathy. Great, great, and as you referred, I'm definitely sometimes up to my eyeballs in flowers or wildflowers.

[LAUGHTER]

CATHY WURZER: Say, when did your interest in flowers begin? I'm curious about that.

DIANA PIERCE: Well, two years ago, I started concentrating on taking photos of flowers. I would post them on my Facebook page. That group started asking me questions. So journalist in me always wanted to include some background information. So then I had requests to put this into a book. But before that happens, I decided, well, let's just put it into a bimonthly newsletter instead.

And so that's been happening and working to create a summer floral guide, a fall floral guide. So when you subscribe to my newsletter Blooming, you'll get some of these freebies in addition to finding out more about the people I'm talking about.

CATHY WURZER: I got to ask you about some of the people you have been talking about. I want to go circle around to the flower photographs themselves, which are stunning. And you don't have to worry about, say, say, finicky or persnickety subjects, right, like dogs or cats or people. I mean, the flowers just sit there, right? But clearly, it's an art. How does one go about properly photographing flowers?

DIANA PIERCE: Well, just like anything, it's been a journey. I started with landscape photography and then switched over to macro photography. So that's what this is. It's macro photography. So it's fun. Yes, they don't move away on me, but they do blow in the breeze. And so I have had to learn how to take fast shutter speeds for things or very slow shutter speeds for things and try to create art as I see it. And I believe that capturing these images-- and I try all kinds of different things. When you go to DianaPiercePhotography.com, you'll see a wide variety of images that I take.

So some are in gardens. Some are in my kitchen. So I've got stuff left over from the dahlia show in my kitchen right now. And yesterday, it was a race against the clock to try and capture as many of those award-winning dahlia blooms from Arnie Sachs and his wife as I could before they started to drop their petals. And so, I only had yesterday because today those flowers are shot. I only maybe have-- and I probably took home, I don't know, 10, 12 blooms. And there's only like three of them left. So sometimes it is-- just like it's a deadline. We are used to deadlines. And so in this particular case, it just happens to be flowers on their own deadline times.

CATHY WURZER: I can't imagine the work that you need to do to light your subjects, at least when you're inside. That's got to be-- that's an art in itself.

DIANA PIERCE: And that part of it's been fun. When you join me for What's Next-- we were doing What's Next. And so we had these big old lights set up in our living room. Well, I've used now some of those lights for some of my indoor flower photography, but I will also work with natural light. So some of the images that I was working with yesterday, I had a black background, but all of my light was coming in from an east window.

And then, at that point, I kind of had about two-hour window. And then I switched over to a white or light background. And that's my kitchen window. And again, it's a different source of light. It's still the sun, but now I have a white disk that's kind of blocking the harsh rays. And then I'll put something up against that. So it's learning that. It's learning intentional camera movement. It's learning all kinds of different techniques that you might see with other subjects. But I'm all applying them to flowers.

CATHY WURZER: So how much have you learned from your beloved partner, and how much of this have you learned from all the amazing photographers you've worked with at Carol Levin?

DIANA PIERCE: I can tell you that I didn't learn any of it from the KARE photographers. [LAUGHTER] And part of that is that that wasn't what they were called to do. They were videography. And very few of them took still pictures. A couple did, but very few. I've learned a lot from Scott. But what I will say is he passed me his macro lens, and he doesn't know what I do, which is-- it's funny. Once in a while I'll ask him about something, but he's got the long lenses because he's taking bird pictures. So he's got like a 600 millimeter lens. Whereas, I'm a 105 macro. I am right on top of the image itself. I'm within 2 to 5 feet of whatever it is that I'm taking the picture.

But I will also say that I signed up for an online photography course. I'm going on year two now, and they teach photography for flowers only. The teachers are from around the world, so I've had someone from France and England and Slovenia and Florida and British Columbia. Then they all have different techniques that they're using when the flowers. And then we have an assignment just like you and I, Cathy, in the past. We had our assignments. And typically, we have about a week to turn it around. So some of the things I learned from that. I take what's useful for me, and sometimes I ignore what I'm not interested in. But it's been photographing a flower through a drop of water, that was one of the assignments. And so, there's been all kinds of different things that they have brought to my attention. So I'm grateful for that.

CATHY WURZER: See? Tell me about the guy, the retired truck mechanic who grows the dahlias in his garden. Is he part of the newsletter?

DIANA PIERCE: Yes, he went out last week. His name is Arnie Sachs. He got started when he sold his transmission repair business, which I just find interesting. He goes from up to his elbows in grease. And now he's growing these eight-foot-tall dahlias in his two-acre backyard. And so he went to the state fair 20 years ago, he and his wife. He saw the dahlia flower exhibit then. He thought, I'll give it a try. And so he's been working on it, improving it, and has over 200 tubers now in his garden. And so he has so many blue ribbons that he recycles them back to his club because he can't keep them all up on his wall. That's how many he has.

CATHY WURZER: Wow.

DIANA PIERCE: He's such a fantastic guy, but it's such work because of the 200. He takes out all of these things out of the yard, puts them wrapped up in plastic underneath his front porch. He then gets them out in the spring, makes sure that everything's ready to go, warms them up a little bit. And then he replants 200 of them. And some are so tall that he uses rebar poles, posts that are six feet tall to reinforce it. So when Minnesota winds come along, they don't get blown over.

CATHY WURZER: Say, speaking of tall flowers, I love the fact that you fact-checked the idea-- you journalist you-- of the idea that sunflowers turn to point toward the sun. That's another one of your newsletter stories.

DIANA PIERCE: Yes.

CATHY WURZER: So what's the deal with that?

DIANA PIERCE: Well they are heliotropes, and when they're-- and again, I didn't know this. I didn't know this. And so it was when I was talking to Peg Johnson at Treasure Haven Farms in Rush City, she and her husband, Pete owned that. They have over 500 acres planted. But it's not just sunflowers. They have a whole bunch of things going on.

But part of it is I thought that they constantly were tracking the sun. No, it's only when they get to a certain point of maturation do they then settle on facing east. So when you go to any of the sunflower farms that are around the twin cities, you will all find that they face the east. And maybe it is that they get the strongest amount of sunlight for the longest time. I'm not quite sure, but oh, my gosh, it's so fun to see all of them up and blooming like that.

CATHY WURZER: And they're so beautiful. OK, Diana, how do people get the newsletter quickly?

DIANA PIERCE: They go to DianaPiercePhotography.com, and it should be the first page that pops up, but if it's not, it's the portfolio page. You'll see a big old button right across the top. And it says, subscribe here.

CATHY WURZER: All right, I'm going to do that, and everyone else should do the same thing. Diana Pierce, it's always fun talking to you. See you later.

DIANA PIERCE: It's great talking to you. Thank you, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: Diana Pierce, photographer, speaker, former KARE 11 news anchor, her Blooming flower guide and subscribing to her newsletter, Blooming, DianaPiercePhotography.com. Thanks for listening.