Borrowed Gardens Project #1: I Am Not a Gardener

Dogwood Tree, Chattanooga, Tennessee
Minolta X-570, Rokkor MD 50mm f1.7, Kodak Color Plus

Today's post is the first of an ongoing series I am planning throughout the year and the beginning of a new project (you know who you are, project-oriented people). This ongoing project will combine my love of photography and my love of . . . 

I was going to say "my love of gardening," but truth compels me to say that . . . I am not a gardener.

Ok, I have done scant bits of gardening in the past. In fact, every spring my wife, Debbie, and I would journey to Lowe's and bring home yard supplies like mulch, week killer, lawn feed, and some colorful flowers to plant in the various flower beds and planters around our house. I happily watered and weeded our plantings, and the bright colors would bring us happiness throughout the long hot north Georgia summer. Nevertheless, the rest of the lawn was a major chore, and it was all done knowing that, no matter how much work and money I invested in it, by July I would be mowing and trimming crabgrass instead of fescue. 

Honeysuckle along the Tennessee Riverpark, Chattanooga
Minolta Maxxum 600si, Minolta AF 50mm f1.7, Kodak Ultramax 400.

When Debbie and I moved to our one bedroom condo in downtown Chattanooga in October of 2019, lawn work was one of the things I was most thankful to be rid of. Besides, our proximity to the riverwalk, numerous parks, and landscaped public buildings meant that we plenty of gardens to explore and enjoy, and straightway we began to do so. And as we did, I discovered that I loved flower gardens more than I had ever realized before! Here were places of great beauty, artfulness, mindfulness, and peace. I wanted to capture those experiences, and it wasn't long before the possibilities of photography began to swirl in my brain.

Golden Ragwort near my condo.
Minolta Maxxum 600si, Minolta AF 50mm f1.7, Kodak Ultramax 400.

Coincidentally, I had just discovered a new blog, Earth, Sun, Film, by Jerome Carter (I discuss my high regard for this blog in the Uncle Jonesy's Cameras Podcast #30). Mr. Carter is a gardening enthusiast, having abandoned his failing front lawn and replaced it with a flower garden in 2014. Initially, he used his iPhone to document the progress (and failures) of his garden, but in early 2019 he purchased a film camera (a Minolta Maxxum 7000i) so that he could blur backgrounds and do other things his iPhone could not do. Since then, Mr. Carter has pursued his gardening and photography passions and recorded his learning in his blog. Since I am a sucker for blogs that will teach me something, I was immediately hooked. Of course, his choice of Minolta resonated with me as well. Obviously, he had good taste in cameras.

As I read through the posts in Earth, Sun, Film, I saw not only the progress Mr. Carter was making in his photography, but also I became a kind of "student" in his classroom. I paid attention as he carefully explained what he had learned from the many books he had read, classes he had taken, and the many hours of practice he put in with his cameras. I realized that I, too, wanted to make photographs of flower gardens in an effort to capture the peaceful moments spent there. But while Mr. Carter had his own garden to photograph, I have no garden nor a place to plant one. 

Golden Ragwort and Vinca, Townsend (Tennessee) Riverwalk and Arboretum 
Minolta Maxxum 600si, Minolta AF 50mm f1.7, Kodak Ultramax 400.

That's when the idea of "borrowed gardens" popped into my head. I didn't have to "own" a garden. I have gardens all around me. Every spring the Bradford pear trees and the redbud trees are the first to bloom. Then come the dogwoods, and cherry trees. Daffodil, tulips, and iris put on a show of color. Other flowers are planted by landscapers of the condo buildings which continue to be build all around us. Debbie and I even have memberships in commercial "gardens" like Rock City Gardens and Gibbs Gardens, just so we can stroll peacefully through a garden without having to plant one ourselves. Why not photograph them as if they were ours? I’ll just "borrow" them, thank you.

Live Oak, Spanish Moss, and Azalea, Jekyll Island, Georgia 
Minolta X-570, Rokkor MD 50mm f1.7, Kodak Color Plus

And so today I introduce my new project, the Borrowed Gardens Project. For this project, I will be attempting to capture the beauty, artfulness, mindfulness, and peace of gardens that belong to someone else, like the colorful plantings of the expensive townhouses along the Tennessee Riverwalk, just a short walk from our condo, or the landscaping surrounding the county courthouse, or the walking trail along the Little River in Townsend, Tennessee, that is cared for by the local garden club. Even a springtime blooming tree like the many dogwood trees in Chattanooga or the ubiquitous azaleas on Jekyll Island will become opportunities to practice composition, exposure, and focusing skills. I will even take the time to research the flowers and learn their names (Debbie is a big help with this). Hopefully, I will have pretty photographs of flowers post online and to print and give away to friends and neighbors in my condo building. And along the way I will become a better photographer. At least that is the idea. 

All photographs were developed by me at Safelight District Community Darkroom in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Fringe Tree near my condo.
Minolta Maxxum 600si, Minolta AF 50mm f1.7, Kodak Ultramax 400.