I have been photographing Leaning Pine Arboretum for years, and it has become one of my favorite gardens. For a garden photographer in California, seeking landscape settings for mature, appropriate plants adapted to the summer-dry climate, Leaning Pine is just about perfect. It is designed as a horticulture display garden for the ornamental horticulture program of[...]
As I photographed California landscapes in 2017, I found myself composing lots of panorama photos. I visited a number of expansive landscapes in my quest to find inspiration for gardeners adapting to our summer-dry climate. Using panorama cropping to evoke a sense of wide open spaces, my journeys started in the early spring when I[...]
The devastating Northern California firestorm that swept through Mendocino, Napa, and Sonoma Counties in October left the earth scorched. Now less than three months later we begin to see the landscape recovering. With a few inches of blessed rain since the fires, the annual grasses have started to green up, creating a eerie juxtaposition to[...]
Some thought Ruth Bancroft would outlive us all. Indeed, when she recently passed at age of 109, she had outlived many admirers. Her garden, the Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek, California was the inspiration for the Garden Conservancy, and was its first garden selected for preservation in 1989. It is a landmark garden for[...]
For my recent garden photography workshop at the Denver Botanic Garden I used the theme Finding Photos. By “finding photos” I ask students to consider the full frame of the camera to create composition within an overall scene that tells their story. It is all too common for any garden photographer, flush with excitement in[...]