Winter Garden
Though I love spring and summer and hang on to their last gorgeous moments of botanical lusciousness as winter sets in, I know there is a different kind of beauty in the natural world as plants go dormant.
Leaves and petals fall away and the structure that gives shape to trees and flowers in previous months is now bare and visible. Trees that do not lose their greenery stand in contrast to those that do. Grasses dry up and turn many lovely shades of brown and tan and white. Flowers heads becomes ghosts of their former selves. I feel a palpable relief in this change once it occurs--time to rest from so much vibrancy and energy that comes from the heat and brightness of summer.
This more delicate, subtle beauty of the natural world at rest is what I sought out in these photographs taken in the winter of 2008. I wanted to capture in these images the often-unnoticed loveliness of a garden in winter. I found these plants in my own yard, my neighborhood, abandoned fields, and a nearby arboretum. These images were taken on black and white medium format film with my Yashika-mat camera. Their negatives were scanned to digital files. Large 20”x 20” prints were shown at a two-person exhibit at the Chapel Hill Public Library the year they were taken.
