Garden Blog Photography – A Gardener’s Perspective

In a previous post, Fran invited us to share our thoughts on garden photography. At the most basic level, my feelings here are the same as hers regarding advertising on blogs: If you don’t like the kind of pictures someone uses, then don’t look at their site. I can’t see how there could be any obligation for someone to post wide-angle shots as opposed to close-up shots. Sure, it’s neat when they do, if they have a reason: to show the setting where they garden, for instance, or to illustrate a particular design principle. But my goodness, isn’t it natural to want to show one’s best, whether it’s a stunning single flower, a great combination, or a beautiful border?

Now, if we set aside the idea that bloggers have an obligation to show less-than-perfect photos, I heartily agree that they do all of us a great service when they choose to show plants, combinations, or borders that aren’t quite perfect. So often, all we gardeners see are the color-enhanced, tight closeups used to market new plant introductions—the same photos used over and over on pot tags, in promotional literature, and in magazine articles. Those drool-inducing images not infrequently entice us into buying plants that turn out to be big disappointments in our gardens. When other bloggers post pictures of these plants in a real-life setting, they provide invaluable insight for the rest of us. I’ve often been disappointed seeing these unflattering portraits (eeew—is that really what it looks like?), but I’d sure rather be disappointed before buying than afterward.

Early and late. In early May, shredded umbrellas (Syneilesis aconitifolia) is an eye-catching foliage accent; by early October, after nearly seven weeks with no rain, it’s not so great. Does that make it a bad plant? No way! You just need to keep in mind that it may not stay perfect-looking through the whole growing season.

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The issue of combination shots—whether in a blog, a magazine, or a book—is a little different, I think. I believe they can all have merit, if you don’t accept them at face value. It’s easy to see an amazing combination and want to reproduce it exactly, but that’s not always possible. Sometimes, the most memorable combinations happen by accident: something tall sprawls onto a low-growing bedmate, or a plant that normally blooms in early summer sends up an unexpected burst of bloom in fall, producing a pairing that’s almost impossible to replicate. Or, a photo may feature a grouping that normally wouldn’t grow together (something that demands dry soil growing next to a moisture-lover, for instance), but for whatever reason, the growing conditions in that specific garden allow it to happen. Weather, lighting, pruning and fertilizing practices, watering regimes, grooming, and so very many other factors can influence how plants look growing together, and how they appear in a photograph, that it takes a fair bit of experience to judge whether it’s worth trying to reproduce the combination.

What any great combination shot can do, though, is provide design inspiration. Instead of slavishly replicating the specific plants shown in the photo, try to figure out what specifically you like about the combo, then see if you can work out how you can reproduce it with plants you can easily find and grow, or even those you already have. If you can’t figure it out yourself, then why not ask your fellow bloggers for their suggestions? Chances are, you’d get some great ideas that you’d have never come up with on your own. Or, there’s no harm in going for a stroll and taking inspiration from other gardens and travel outdoors without worry.

Wide or tight? The more plants you see in a combination shot, the more you learn. You get a better idea of the setting and growing conditions, and you can more easily see how the plants appear in proportion to one another. But tight combination shots can be inspiring, too. Capturing vignettes like this is one of my favorite parts of gardening!

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Wide-angle shots? Well, that’s yet another issue. If someone’s writing about a whole garden/property in a blog post, magazine article, or a book but they only show flower or leaf close-ups that could have come from anywhere, then yes, that’s basically useless: I say, show me the bigger view! Here again, though, a single photo—which captures just one instant in an on-going piece of performance art—can’t tell the whole story. What did that border look like last week, before the gardener got in there to weed and groom it? What will it look like three months later, when all the early bloomers have finished and weeks of heat and drought have taken their toll? Does it really matter? Yes, it does, if you’ve decided you want to reproduce that exact planting in your own space. No, it doesn’t, if you can simply enjoy the artistry of that moment for what it is, and possibly use it to inspire your own garden-making.

As time goes by. A new project I started this summer is taking shots at different times from the same point. I don’t always get it quite right, but when I do, I enjoy seeing how the plants change as the season progresses.

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Ok, enough of my ramblings. I’ll finish up with a few specific things I’d love to see more of in garden-blog photography. In fact, I think I’ll start working on some of these myself. If any of you have other suggestions, feel free to add them!

• Around-the-year plant portraits: A single species or cultivar shown at regular intervals all through one year, and in different years for perennials and woody plants. For an annual, for instance, show what the seeds and seedlings look like, then the plant as it grows, flowers, and forms seedheads. For perennials, shrubs, and so on, I’d like to see everything from the new shoots through to seed stage (and seeds here, too), as well as fall color and winter form.

• Around-the-year garden case studies: Similar to above, but showing the evolution of a single bed or border from creation to maturity, as well as through the growing season. Isn’t it great when bloggers show a new garden space they’ve created, then update later to show how it turned out? I’d love to see a lot more of that!

• Design themes: Multiple photos illustrating a specific design principle the blogger finds interesting, such as a particular color combination, or a single plant used in several different combinations. How about blog posts featuring images of our favorite garden paths, or sheds, or trellises? Maybe we here at GGW could host a monthly Garden Bloggers’ Design Workshop as a place to gather thoughts and photos on various design challenges, if there’s any interest. (I could see this working something like the Garden Bloggers’ Book Club started by Carol of May Dreams Gardens, but with a monthly design topic instead of a book.)

Just some ideas to consider next time you’re puzzling over what to post on your blog. Already doing any or all of these? Let us know!