Framing the Beauty of the Sparkling Garden Landscape

When Marilyn Monroe shimmied around singing that ‘Diamonds are a girl’s best friend’, she spoke for many of us that are drawn to the sparkly things in life. I recently read that this magpie tendency has its roots in our evolutionary survival instinct. Sparkling indicated the possibility of nearby water, and therefore meant preservation of life. Sunlight, of course, offered crops the chance to grow.

As a garden photographer, then, this light is *everything*. The very word photography originates from the Greek words phōtós (“light”), and graphê (“drawing or writing”). I can’t do my job without light, and so in the days before a planned shoot, I already know what direction everything is facing, and I obsessively check the variety of weather apps I have in my phone. Just as the gardener makes the decision of where best to afford a plant the opportunity to thrive, the light-and-shade conditions of a garden dictate where I might be able to make successful images. When I arrive to photograph a garden (often while it is that delicious just-before-dawn twilight, that holds such promise), I calculate whereabouts is first likely to feel that tickle of golden rays. Someone once advised me, “If you’ve seen it, you’ve missed it”, impressing the importance of being in position, ready and waiting for when the light is perfectly enhancing the landscape.

Conveying the joy of a scene

And my goodness, it’s a job that brings plenty of moments of joy. For a start, it means taking in a scene and noticing the details. I’ll begin with where the gorgeous low sidelight is working its socks off to show the shape, form and texture of plants. I’ll aim to understand what the gardener wants to display, what combinations they’ve married together, where does  one plant beautifully set off another. What have they left for wildlife to forage, where will the pollinators make - literally - a bee-line for? Where can I select a longer lens and visually draw us right in amongst the planting, to show layer upon layer of interest? By now, my creative brain goes into overdrive looking for ways to capture the wide view, the plant details, and what I call ‘garden vignettes’ - little corners of planting magic where everything sings harmoniously together. The aim is to make you, the viewer, feel the same rush of excitement from the scene as I do in that image-making moment. I always think I’m a little like the cartoon canine Dug, from the movie ‘Up’, who distractedly shouts “Squirrel!” every time one catches his eye. Think of me as the garden version, distracted by plants, sunlight, shadows, and wielding a camera…

Framing the view

While I’ve been a keen home gardener for as long as I’ve had my own patch, I joke that my photographic nous is rather more advanced than my horticultural knowledge. That said, I do pick up plant names, gardening 'how-to' tips and inspired ideas from the people I’m privileged to work with. In turn, I’m able to help gardeners with photography pointers on how to make best use of phone cameras, and using social media to showcase their work. I’ll remind them that our round eyes have a field of vision much beyond a four-sided frame; but in taking a photo, we have to hem in a scene within four edges and corners. We find ourselves aiming for compositional decisions that delight rather than distract; that allow the natural world room to breathe, in spite of being made static. Here's one of my favourite pieces of advice: demonstrating the difference it can make, if we simply play around a bit with the level of viewpoint we take the photograph from…

Soggy knees are worth it

Just this morning, while working on a project, there was a solitary purple crocus giving its first ‘ta-dah!’ to the world as it burst its vibrant colour through mossy, shady grass. One more yellow crocus in bud sat just in front. Holding my camera at ground level, letting the yellow be the foreground blur and the dewy sunlit diamonds in the grass become this girl’s best friend, I made a simple (and at first glance, fairly bare) scene, of one purple crocus, into an image I really liked. So while the crouching and bending, and adjusting of tripod legs and carrying of heavy equipment may keep my chiropractor in pay cheques, I still set off to each garden photography job in joyful anticipation of being uplifted by sparkling nature…

But stiff back or stiff knees, You stand straight at Tiffany's - Diamonds are a girl's best friend!          - Lyrics to ‘Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend’ by Jule Styne / Leo Robin