How Does That Make You Feel ?

Ladders are scary. I’m glad you’re on the mend, Saxon. Enjoy the garden!

Thanks for dropping by Pam. On the mend – Saxon

Pretty, sunshine filled shots – lot’s of optimism here. Glad to hear you’re home and on the mend. Take care – enjoy the garden and the sunshine

Thanks Theresa. Glad you “saw” my story – Saxon

Wow, you really injured yourself, no wonder you were in the hospital so long. I think we need to be a little more conscious as we get older. Sherry jumped off a wall and really hurt her leg, I am going to have second thoughts now about jumping. Take care and enjoy your garden.

Hey Christina – yeah, I really did it. I think we all need to be more conscious about things we think we can do. It doesn’t mean we don’t do them, mind you, but self awareness is a good thing. I will check on Sherry; hope the open garden was a success – Saxon

Oh my goodness Saxon I am so sorry to hear about your accident! What a scary thing to happen. I am glad you are doing better and have ventured out with your camera. You are right about taking risks and I like what you have done. I thought it would hurt my camera to do that.

And yes gardens are so healing. Mine has healed my mind and soul.

Interesting you thought about my camera Candy, because I was thinking that too. I can only hold my little G11 point and shoot with one hand, and was determined to push it toward the sun through the various parts of the garden. I recall a garden photography workshop instructor, Allen Rokach, using his camera as a tough tool rather than a delicate instrument, and gave myself permission to try anything to get a photo of sunshine as I thrust the camera into flower and foliage. There are many failures in this series, and none are quite to my liking, but if anything, this blog post has encouraged me to try new things. In the end it is the story, how it makes you feel rather than the perfect technical quality. And I feel better for having tried. In my incapacitated state with pain and pain killers, the brain is not where I want it. I can accept this for a temporary condition but using the camera is as much a part of the healing as the garden itself – Saxon

Tending and mending…

Oh I wish I could do more of the tending – Saxon

Saxon, I am relieved to hear that you are on the mend after what sounds like no ordinary fall.
And these are no ordinary photographs either.

Aside from the “story”, they are also a reflection of you – your bright spirit, courage in daring to use light in non-traditional ways (wasn’t there a hard and fast rule that the photographer should always keep the sun at his back?), and boundless creativity, and joie de vivre.

I’ve come a long way as a photographer, thanks almost entirely to the lessons you post here, but I still have a long way to go. I’ve also learned to look at photographs differently – others’ as well as my own – and to try to “read” the story the image is telling.

I’m not always good at it (well, to be totally honest here, I’m barely what you’d call scraping the level of “adequate”). In two of your photographs in this post, I was able to immediately see symbolism behind the arrangement of major elements with startling clarity that surprised even me.

In the first, bright light appears to be either rising from or beaming straight into the petal bowl of what looks like either a bright yellow gerbera daisy or possibly a calendula. I’ve stared at this image for a long time and I can’t decide if the “story” is that sunlight feeds the blossoms or that light emanates from the blossoms. Maybe the real beauty is that it’s both.

In the third photograph, I am not entirely sure of the ID of the plants in the foreground, but there are some tall green spikes of what looks to be an ornamental grass (in my garden, those would more likely be weeds) angled up in such a way that it almost looks as though they are an extension of the sun’s rays.

The right lower edge of the image where the grass seems to be growing from is lighter, pale brownish. If you squint, it almost seems like the opposite corners of the photograph are mirror images that morph into one another. The sun shines down from the upper left and the grass reaches up from the lower right,the grass spikes extending and merging with the sun’s rays.

The storyline in photo #3 is a rif on the story told by photo #1. It’s also a story I couldn’t have told a year ago B.SH…… (Before Saxon Holt).

You wrote us a lesson Saxon… but instead of typing with your sore shoulder, you just let the photographs tell it. And I actually think I got at least part of it.

Take care of yourself. I hope you continue to heal both swiftly and completely. And yes, gardens do truly heal the body as well as the spirit.

Cathy

Cathy – Your comment is so, so very much appreciated. I HAVE been asking my students to look at photos to find the photographer’s intent, and you are doing just that and in this case finding exactly what I was trying to do. Part of this lesson and post is about process not results. Knowing I could not fully develop a lesson, yet wanting to tell a story (and like the ol’ newspaperman – make a deadline), I used whatever camera I could, to pursue the sun as I found it in my garden. The healing is as much about the light, the out of doors, as it is about the garden.

The yellow flowers are gerberas and I am trying to say how the light feeds both the flower and me, in several ways… Most of my readers know I love ornamental grasses. I even have a lecture topic about how they “Harvest the Light” – not as photosynthesis, but they reveal the light when well placed in the garden. This is hard to photograph and the photo here is the best of several wild attempts to connect the grass to the sun, holding the camera low with one hand, hoping something of those elements would be in focus and the exposure would not blow out. In the end, as I said to Candy in another comment, the story is the thing here, not the perfect photo. It makes me feel the sun – and you saw the story – Saxon

Yikes! It sounds like we came all too close to reading a post here about how garden photographer Saxon Holt died suddenly in a fall from a ladder in his studio. Then we wouldn’t have any more step-by-step photography lessons here at all, nor these photographs either.

It’s amazing how even when you break so many of the rules of photography, your photographs only get more interesting than ever. I think a lot of us, if we have decent cameras, can occasionally manage to take a good photograph of professional quality – but the ability to take such fantastic “bad” photographs as these seems to be a much rarer thing.

Thanks Gayle – I will stick around to finish the book…

It can be liberating to break the rules. In fact, that is almost the first thing anyone learning to use a camera should do, just to learn what “rules” are, and begin to learn some discipline with their own rules. Every so often we should all break the rules when conditions challenge us, or we start feeling stuck in telling a story the same ‘ol way. – Saxon

I love the rule breaking – not so much the part about the bones. Feeling for you! – healing waves of wellness wafting your way….

Thanks Country – I’m feelin’ your (and Town’s) good wishes. – Saxon

I hope you continue to heal, especially in the garden. If it is any consolation, you probably didn’t miss much in August.

Les – My accident was Aug. 30 when it was still summer. Now it is clearly almost suddenly autumn. I know I missed something … 😉 – Saxon

I am so so sad to hear you took a bad fall. Glad you are on the mend, but I can imagine with your injuries that you are still hurting. I am surprised that you said, “There is no good picture that does not tell a story.” That really gives me something to think about. It makes for less good pictures when put that way. At least you are in your garden, time the think, time to heal. No better place for both.

Hi Donna. You will have noticed I never did a Mental Seeds posy last month I bet…

All pictures tell stories if we give them credit. We do not always take the time to figure what the story is, or even what the photographer intended (or not), but they are stories – usually chosen, edited, or composed so we get a message. – Saxon

I did notice no Mental Seeds posy last month. Thanks for explaining what you meant. I thought not all photos tell a story, so I was a bit confused. It is just the story they tell if we are engaged enough to look, right?

Yes Donna; and some photos tell stories the photographer didn’t intend, but being engaged always adds depth to out understanding. – Saxon

It makes me feel great and fresh. Your post is nice and pictures are really very beautiful. Thanks for sharing this nice post here with us.