Traveling the World Shooting Exotic Plants

This article originally appeared on Amuse.

During her travels, Russian photographer Dina Lun has documented enough exotic plants to fill the whole garden of Eden. She's been traveling around South-East Asia for over five years, and has fully embraced the wild variety of the region's flora.

"Among my favorite places are the quiet village of Pai in the North of Thailand, Nepal with its cedar incense, Bali which I explored throughout during the six months there. I'm always very inspired by the coexistence of the wild variety of plants and the similarly wild daily life of the metropolis – the best places to experience this are Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore," Lun explains.

Lun's interest in plants goes deeper than just the aesthetic: she's a botany scholar and has an ambition of creating her own encyclopedia of species from various corners of the world. In the time free from traveling, she runs online magazine Organica dedicated to nature and flora in contemporary photography — the two for her always go hand in hand.

"The world of plants is the whole universe which is always interesting to observe. For me, flowers and plants are like models for photographers who do portraits or fashion. They are also temporary and each of them have their own character. For me they're more subjects than objects, perfect models to shoot during traveling," she explains.

At times, Lun's dedication also leads to unplanned adventures. "Sometimes taking a photo of a certain flower or fruit can be a very fulfilling challenge", she says. "Once I saw a dragon fruit flower, but was too lazy to get off the bike to take a picture. When I returned to the same place the next day, the flower was gone — turned out it only blossoms for a couple of hours at night. In the end, we spent a few hours driving around in the dark to capture the beautiful moment."