A lumen print is made by putting objects on a light-sensitive medium, typically photographic paper or film, and exposing it to the sun for hours or even days, depending on the intensity of the sunlight. These lumens were made by contact printing flowers directly onto expired Ilford Ortho 4×5 film. They were fixed in photochemistry to stop the exposure, scanned, and then edited digitally to bring out the bright colors.

I made these lumen prints for my daughter, Emelyn, when she was a baby. I used flowers that were blooming during the spring and summer of her early days. I started the bleeding heart exposure the day before I went into labor. Several days passed after she was born when I realized the bleeding heart lumen I had started was still exposing. I put it in a dark closet, but thought it might be ruined when I fixed and scanned the film four weeks postpartum. It turned out better than expected, so I kept experimenting.