I love photographing my garden, but I’m also a procrastinator.  When I replaced my old, sickly laptop, I transferred files I was currently working on but put off dealing with thousands of photos and files that needed to be culled and transferred.  I paid the price for putting off that task today when I was asked for a picture of me in my garden and images that inspired The Gardener’s Plot. 

After scouring through photos on my current and old laptops, I discovered I didn’t have many pictures that met the requirements of the request.  First, I by far prefer to be the one taking pictures, so there were none of me in my garden.  Second, my pictures tend to be close-ups highlighting particular plants, with only the occasional broader view.  Third, I apparently prefer portrait layout when composing pictures, not landscape orientation as was requested. 

Fortunately, my search did yield a handful of pictures that I hope will be useful.   

This all led me to consider doing things a bit differently the next time I’m out capturing the moment with my camera.  While I don’t plan to stop taking closeups of flowers and plants and capturing pollinators at work whenever I can, I do plan to take more photos of the garden as a whole with more horizontal compositions.  But no, there won’t likely be pictures of me in the garden.  I still prefer to be the one behind the camera.

The best thing about my search today was that it gave me the opportunity to look at photos I hadn’t visited in a while.  I found myself smiling—a lot.  The picture of the birdbath with the twin bleeding hearts brought back memories of the summer day I was digging a hole to move the birdfeeder pole when I unearthed a mass of white entangled roots without any indication above ground what it might be.  It took a moment staring at the chunk of it in the pile of dirt I’d dug up and the other chunk still in the ground to realize I’d cut the root ball of my bleeding heart in two.  I quickly dug a second hole and reburied both halves.  Happily, the following spring two bleeding hearts grew where there had been one.  That was my first lesson in root division and by far the most traumatic. 

That was just one of many trips down memory lane today.  The photos we take are like a doorway to the past, not only capturing memories, but reminding us of stories we’ve forgotten.

Do you enjoy taking pictures in the garden when there’s no one but you and the plants (well, maybe a critter or two)?  Or during walks in the woods?  Or down a path in the country? 

If you’d like to learn more about taking photos in the garden, you might find some helpful hints here:  https://www.uvm.edu/news/extension/tips-photographing-your-garden.

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