Botanical Exposure in Sofia: when living flowers meet real photography

On 4 August 2026, Sofia hosted the Botanical Exposure exhibition — an event that brought together contemporary photography, floral art and living human emotion. The exhibition was organised and sponsored by Mireya Fleur Boutique.

Botanical Exposure became a space where flowers ceased to be merely a decorative element, and photography — merely a way to capture a beautiful frame. The central idea of the project was the meeting of two living forms of art: floristry and photography.

Photographers from different European countries took part in the event, each presenting their own vision of beauty, the human being, nature and the emotional bond between them.

Flowers as part of contemporary art

For Mireya Fleur Boutique, working with flowers has long moved beyond the boundaries of traditional floristry.

The brand specialises in premium flowers and bouquets and operates in Bulgaria, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Paris. At the same time, one of Mireya's important tasks is to build a broader cultural space around flowers.

Flowers can exist not only inside a bouquet. They can become part of a photograph, an exhibition, a performance, an educational project or a dialogue between people.

That is why Mireya Fleur Boutique regularly takes part in cultural initiatives, organises exhibitions, festivals, creative events and educational programmes for florists.

Botanical Exposure became a continuation of this philosophy.

At the centre of the project were living flowers and living photography — two instruments capable of conveying mood, the character of a moment and human emotion without any need to explain them in words.

Photographers from different European countries

One of the important features of Botanical Exposure was its international participation.

The exhibition presented the work of photographers from different European countries. The authors used a variety of visual styles and approaches, yet they were united by a single theme — the interaction of the human being, nature, colour and emotion.

The audience and the jury had the opportunity to evaluate the works on their own.

Among the most highly rated photographs were the works of the Bulgarian photographer Igor Ogiy (@tipppan), representing the city of Burgas and the photographic community Not AI Club.

It was precisely his works that received the largest number of votes from the audience.

The works chosen by the audience

Sometimes it is not the description that speaks best about a photograph, but the photograph itself.

Below we would like to share the works of the author who received the greatest number of viewer votes at Botanical Exposure.

Igor Ogiy, Bulgaria, Burgas — Not AI Club

These works became one example of how important the human gaze of the photographer remains: the ability to notice the moment, to sense the composition, to see the emotion and preserve it in the frame.

Can artificial intelligence replace live photography?

A separate part of Botanical Exposure was a small creative experiment.

One of the exhibition participants, the photographer Ekaterina Zubkova (@katrin_bulgaria), decided to create one of her works using contemporary generative artificial intelligence technologies.

Neither the audience nor the members of the jury knew in advance which particular photograph had been created with the help of AI.

The result turned out to be unexpected.

It was precisely the generated photograph that received the lowest number of viewer votes and took last place in the assessment among the presented works.

At the same time, Ekaterina's other photographs received a completely different result: several of her authored works were highly rated and made it into the top 15 among the 100 photographs presented.

An experiment without a predetermined answer

We do not consider this result to be proof that images created by artificial intelligence cannot be art.

AI is becoming an ever more powerful creative instrument and is already today capable of producing technically impressive images.

However, the experiment at Botanical Exposure invites us to think about something else.

Perhaps, when a person comes to a creative exhibition, they are subconsciously looking not only for visual perfection.

They are looking for human presence.

A real moment.

A real emotion.

The story of the person who stood on the other side of the lens.

A small chance element, an imperfection or a detail that could not have been programmed in advance.

Contemporary AI images are becoming better and better in quality, but they often retain a certain visual predictability. They can be flawlessly beautiful, but it is precisely this flawlessness that sometimes makes the image less personal.

For a creative audience, living authorship may be no less important than the picture itself.

Living photography and living flowers

In this sense, the experiment turned out to be especially symbolic for the concept of Botanical Exposure.

The flowers at the exhibition were real.

The photographers worked with real people, real spaces and real emotions.

And it was precisely the combination of living flowers and living photography that became one of the main ideas of the project.

A fresh flower cannot be perfectly repeated. Each bud differs slightly from another, each opens in its own way and exists only within a certain moment in time.

Photography works in many ways in a similar manner.

A single gesture, a single glance, a change of light or a facial expression can exist only for a fraction of a second.

The photographer's task is to sense that moment and preserve it.

That is precisely why flowers and photography turned out to be such natural partners within a single artistic space.

Mireya Fleur Boutique: more than a flower brand

For Mireya Fleur Boutique, Botanical Exposure is not simply a stand-alone event.

It is part of a wider idea of the brand.

Mireya seeks to create not only premium bouquets and floral compositions, but also projects capable of uniting around flowers art, photography, culture and people.

The brand operates in Bulgaria, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Paris, working together with florists, artists, photographers and other representatives of the creative community.

Mireya Fleur Boutique also develops an educational direction, takes part in professional events and organises programmes for florists.

Botanical Exposure became another opportunity to show that contemporary floristry can exist far beyond the boundaries of the flower shop.

It can become part of an exhibition space, an artistic experiment and a cultural dialogue.

Art begins where emotion appears

Technology will continue to develop.

Artificial intelligence will become even more precise, more realistic and more accessible to artists, designers and photographers.

But the result of Botanical Exposure reminded us of a simple thing: viewers are still capable of feeling the difference between an image that simply looks beautiful and a work that evokes an emotional response.

Perhaps that is precisely why contemporary art today needs to preserve its human component.

For Mireya Fleur Boutique, flowers have always been more than an object.

They are emotion, gesture, atmosphere and a way to bring people together.

And Botanical Exposure became one more confirmation of this idea — living flowers, living people and real moments create art that one wants not simply to see, but to feel.