Wild About Here

Celebrating nature's beauty in fine art prints, botanical tales, accessories with botanical art photography by Kriss MacDonald.

Wild About Here is a blog about nature adventures and living creatively with camera, kids, recipes & books. I’m a mother, photographer, blogger, journalist, cook and dreamer. I’m British and American thus both Mum and Mom to my fraternal twins.

03/09/2026

September days in my corner of the world…the Algarve. Choosing flowers from the garden to reflect the change of season in my floral art photography

Dahlias start coming into full bloom…although each year I’m surprised by old and new arrivals

My home in the background…I live in the middle of the countryside. All the fields are dry (including ours) as the wildflowers continue with their beauty sleep.

My favourite time to go for a beach swim as the ocean water is usually warmest now…and no longer huge crowds..

The west coast of Algarve is a favourite area of mine for walks along the cliff tops ..such a beautiful wild area

But also love nature walks by our home with one of four dogs (three rescued as puppies)

Atractylis gummifera - one of the few wildflowers around right now

Roses are all flowering again in the garden

And frequent visits to plant nurseries to see what I can plant in my autumn garden…sometimes with some unexpected other visitors. Happy September ###

31/08/2026

I had no idea when I created and named my floral art ‘Poppy & Gladiolus’ that these two flowers are known as the August birthday flowers. I discovered they are the birth flowers for August while writing the description for my phone case (no 3 - a MagSafe Tough case) featuring this botanical art photography. My art is created with real flowers grown in my garden. The Poppies were all across the fields just outside my home - many in our own field.

Gladiolus, symbolising strength and love, flower in various months in my garden - the white Gladiolus in no 2 just bloomed this month. Poppies in our warm climate appear in Spring while showing up in the summer months other regions. I’ve started to scatter some poppy seeds already in our garden too as I love their wild mix with garden hybrids (no 5).

1 ‘ Poppy & Gladiolus’
2. White gladiolus
3. Poppy & Gladiolus premium phone case which will be part of my first launch.
4. How I create…flowers are composed on canvas and photographed in natural light
5. Poppies and gladiolus in the garden
6 Gladiolus in my garden
7. WIldflowers including pink and red poppies in our field

Kriss xx

26/08/2026

The ripening and picking of fruit starts in August …first with the grapes from my ancient grapevine growing across my studio. We know from the family that first restored our farmhouse that it was already old about 50 years ago. Each year we still get up to 40 bunches just from this one vine. This year I left an area for the birds to enjoy during the dry hot spell as love listening to them sing amongst the grapes while I work at my studio desk. A very large snake also decided to enjoy it one year!

At the moment I have lemons, nectarines, my first grapefruit…. And so many olives and figs but that’s another story. I’m still waiting for my Dahlias to come in full bloom but they’re looking much happier after surprises rainfalls this week. THe Dahlias, grapes and plumbago in the floral flatlay are from a past august x

19/08/2026

A floral and nature collection from the garden… love seeing what is blooming right now in the late summer … While behind the scenes I’m getting ready for my phone case launch featuring real flowers grown like here in the garden or from my local fields.
🧡 in no 4 you can see the MagSafe Tough case with my botanical photography fine art print ‘Rhapsody’- although a spring image it has the same Snapdragon and orange Hibiscus (no3) which first appear earlier in the year and then rebloom after the mid summer intense heat.

As well as Roses and Hibiscus, all the varieties of Salvia and blue plumbago are starting to show off their colours in the garden x

05/08/2026

The best thing about the August summer garden is when the Dahlias start blooming …and I can start creating floral art with these diva flowers. This year they’re definitely going for the slow living vibe as I’m still waiting for them to go into full bloom. So here’s a little behind the scenes on my botanical art photography….

I’ve been re-editing (1) ‘ Dahlias and Honeysuckle’, working on the final colours for a possible future print release as well as on phone cases ( yeah…hugely excited to soon start showing you the cases that will be available …thrilled with the quality of the prints and cases)
(2) My botanical art features real flowers, grown in my garden or collected from the countryside around me and our field)
(3) when I compose my works I like to first create a framework which I then keep adding flowers
(4) most photographed on canvas frames .. and in natural light
(5) I shoot dozens and dozens of pictures before my final stage of post editing in Adobe Lightroom with final touches in Adobe Photoshop …so I get (1)

And apparently I’m not the only one finding that the Dahlias are flowering much later this summer!

28/07/2026

In the summer heat despite no rain for months, figs, olives, and quince are ripening amidst hot weather loving flowers - who do need some watering. My floral flatlays reflect each season - here the midsummer’s bounty - gathered from the garden. In the last image you can see how they’re photographed on a canvas in natural light. They’re real flowers of the season… and here with ripening fruit.

And like every summer I need to figure out what to do with all the figs when they’re ready! I’ll give some away hoping for a reward of fig jam, dry many for snacks, and look out for some recipes. A local restaurant recently offered home made fig ice cream! Any suggestions are very welcome as I get an over abundance especially of green figs x

11/07/2026

Quiet moments with tea, notebook, fresh and dried flowers at my botanical desk in my studio… Who else has found the early summer heat wave has affected blooming times? This year I’m still waiting for my Rudbeckia to grow and flourish (like in the past - image 2), although the Hibiscus and Echinacea are showing up.

I’ve been trying to balance fixing the garden irrigation as the garden needs extra water in the summer, growing flowers from seed, family visits to see my mother ( she lives in our garden cottage and has needed lots of care) and more… while working behind the scenes on the launch of phone cases with my seasonal botanical photography. I’ve found the way to keep calm and handle my stress is walking the dogs and photographing the last of the wildflowers as well as heading to the gym x

26/06/2026

Often when I create my floral photography artworks I’m inspired by the seasonal colours and which to combine together - a favourite in the summer are orange and blue colours together… especially a peachy orange with a more turquoise blue… such as here with Roses, Hibiscus, and Love-in-the-Mist…and hints of pink. The colours also remind me of beautiful sunsets with the blend of orange, pink, and blue sky 🧡💕🩵

What are your favourite flower colour combinations?

Floral art, floral flatlay, garden grown flowers, colour inspiration, botanical photography.

Peaches in the garden at sunset 🧡

My new small Frangipani tree - Plumeria rubra- which I bought in the local market this week as I fell in love with the pinks, oranges, and yellows in its petals 💕🧡💛

18/06/2026

Summer collection with botanical themed books, flowers from my garden and bird nest and eggs. I’m always finding hatched eggs and little nests in our garden. The wildest nest was one I found in our cobweb brush in the garage! The last couple of weeks I’ve been making sure no car or visiting van brushes against the peach tree as there’s now European Goldfinch hatchlings in it.
1. Summer books and botanicals flatlay with nature finds and flowers from my garden
2. BIrds nest in cobweb brush!
3. June flowers including Roses, Gladiolus, honeysuckle, Love-in-the-mist, butterfly wing, bird’s nest with hatched eggs - all from my garden.
4. Goldfinch nest and hatchlings in the peach tree.
SO love having wildlife finding a safe haven in the garden.

04/06/2026

It’s Gladiolus time in the garden when I wait to see which ones from past seasons and newly planted bulbs show up as flower divas in the garden. They became popular in the 19th century with the first hybrids, later were viewed as rather old fashioned but they’re now back in fashion in many gardens.

1 In the first floral flatlay ‘Enchanted’ they’re mixed with wildflowers and garden flowers. Can you spot the bees that landed on the wild leeks - Allium ampeloprasum ? They kept buzzing around the flowers when I was photographing this work with real flowers on a canvas outdoors in natural light.

2 Gladiolus in front of our lemon tree. In warm climates like ours in the Algarve you can leave the bulbs in the ground and many return as perennials.

3 Wild leek, Scabiosa, wild carrot and the blue chicory wildflower in our field.

4 The many different colours of the showy Gladiolus.

Are you a Gladiolus fan?

Endereço

Região Do Algarve
Albufeira
8200-250

Website

http://wildabouthere.com/

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