It's occurred to me that despite a stated claim, I only infrequently include pictures of my own garden. One of the reasons - and there are perfectly innocent ones too, such as that I like to get out and about where the grass seems to be greener - is that what I have and what I have done are nowhere near good enough to expose to public scrutiny.
Photographs lie. Or is it that photographers do? Photographs purport to tell the truth, in this information age, much more nearly than a more creative interpretation might.
But a photographer selects and excludes. A photographer draws your gaze to an object...and the photographer diverts your gaze from other objects. As I am doing here, see? I don't want to show you Dullville so I show you some pruned apple branches flowering in a pot.
"The Gardener Opens His Toolkit", but this is not my toolkit. I don't even have a toolkit. I just have some bits and pieces I use, alot of them, in themselves, not photogenic. But I decided to spare you the pain of seeing reality.
This above is, apparently, a genuine gardening toolkit as used by a genuine gardener. But, reader, Faisal concocted it this afternoon, hoping to enthrall you. Sadly, some of the apparent tools this gardener uses are impractical, if not inapplicable, in any real life garden setting.
Or perhaps not. However little like any photogenically sumptuous garden my own garden may be, I find that, yes, I can use in it materials that have not come from any authorised or topical source. And as a gardener, I can act without regard to any gardening trends...
as the shoes above indicate. It has to be said that I get about in my slippers sometimes, and once in a blue moon, in a purpose-built pair of heavy workman's boots. But these are what I trip about in. So, at last, here is a real photograph of a real thing, or of a real pair of things.
This is another,
Eucalyptus caesia staked and tied. An unglamorous if satisfyingly rustic shot, it nevertheless shows what's what, even if it doesn't show the ugly chicken wire fencing nearby. There we go...the photographer pretends to be real, while at the very same time excluding the unsatisfactory or disappointing.
The photographer is trying to show you what matters to him. From out of all the degradation and the rusting and the blights of our days, flowering is forever. Even here, in Dullville.
Pretty Freesias. Ahh, Spring is here.
ReplyDeleteAt last what we were wanting has come. Thank you, I hope your own garden flowers profusely.
Deletefreesias flowering in my pots too. They smell so delicious. My mother once told me, that her mother used to put a vase of freesias near the gaslight - the heat brought out the fragrance. Now the flowers remind me of the grandmother I never met.
DeleteDiana, it's funny, that memory thing, as if the past, or the past we cherish, is really still with us. The scent of flowers remains constant through time, as ephemeral as it is.
DeleteBeautiful and natural gardening, great photos.
ReplyDeleteCheers Bob, very much. It's for the natural we live, isn't it, and I mean that in the broadest sense as well as in the most particular.
DeleteLots of interesting things in dullville! I do the same thing and only show close up images of interesting things, rarely showing the full horror of my unkempt garden.
ReplyDeleteMy dear, what can you do? Around here it's pretty rough, but I like to believe anyone, even in their finest moments, would be welcome.
DeleteThere is nothing wrong with the real, the artful carries with it a vision - and your compositions highlight something of yourself - lovely blog.
ReplyDeleteIt's beauty, Paul, that really interests me. They say, don't they, that truth and beauty amount to the same thing. And we need both what's real and here and now, and we need our visions. And thank you for the compliment.
DeleteOne of the first things my instructor taught us in photography class was that photographs are not images of reality - though people assume they are - and not just because of what's included or left out. i enjoyed your photos, though, whatever the reality.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sharmon...reality can so often be what we want it to be, but I'm sure photography translates it, anyway. I guess if we can never experience a reality directly, a photograph, or some other medium can suggest it.
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