I've been moving this amaryllis around the house for a couple of weeks, hanging on to it so that I could make a still life. However my life has been anything but still and I've just not had the time. Over the intervening weeks it has changed, decayed and actually become more interesting, more sculptural. Like all my recent pictures the subject was planted and grown by me, nurtured on the windowsill, my winter garden. I construct an improvised daylight studio in my home and have lots of coloured backgrounds, enjoying the process of styling and building the still life. Strangely after I'd made these photographs I discovered that the background I used here is called Marrs Green, recently pronounced The World's Favourite Colour by paper makers GF Smith after an online survey. Aptly it was inspired by the Scottish landscape and Caroline Till, the editor of Viewpoint Colour Magazine, suggested the shade's success was down to people wanting to reconnect with the natura