My job with the camera is to extract images from the world in order to experience life more deeply, or to understand it (and hopefully myself) more fully. Whereas a painter starts with nothing (or as close to nothing as a white canvas can be), the photographer starts with everything and tries to find the essence of what they see.
I have spent most of my life not noticing the garden. Like everyone, I enjoyed the occasional picnic, walk through the park, and morning exercise around the block. If I noticed nature at all, it was as a background, or setting, for my life. It wasn’t until recently that I started making a garden. I had no idea what I was in for. I thought I would put a few plants in a pot so I could look out the window and see color instead of cement. I hoped I would remember to water them.
I was not prepared for what that simple action brought. First of all, you put the plant in the pot, water it, take off your gloves, and retire satisfied for the day. The next day you go out to see it and it has changed, maybe just a little bit, but the day after it has changed even more. It changes every day. It doesn’t just get bigger, it changes shape, it changes color; some flowers get brighter while others grow older and darker, or older and more delicate, or they start out wispy and grow robust, then Boom! Die! The leaves are constantly changing too, widening, thickening, elongating, growing through a wide range of colors. And all of this can happen on just one plant. Add a couple more plants and the exuberance of life just goes insane.
Summer Garden is an active, intense, attention to the garden as a life form, an attempt to capture the adventure of experiencing it. Rather than create an image of a perfect moment or subject, I focus on capturing the garden in the way that my eye experiences it. I look at a small part of the garden and I see one thing, then notice another, then another. One area will grab my attention, then fade, followed by a new one. I think that this act of shifting attention from one experience to another, along with the intuitive human response of comparison and contrast, especially of a life form, can propel us into a moment of pure wonder. I certainly feel wonder in the garden.
The photographs are shown in sets of five to nine images. The photographs are printed on Fuji Crystal Light, 20” x 30”, with the date, time, and wind factor printed below. Each set of images can be printed to hang horizontally or vertically. A few images may be sold individually.