The inspiration for this series comes from the black-and-white illustrations and botanical books which meant so much to me as a child, and also from a certain kind of Japanese print.
These are not just straight B/W photos, but are based on coloured photos which I have desaturated and then worked on to produce this effect (a very time-consuming process!)
This is not about botanical illustration! In this case, it is just about delight in the amazing variety of plants.
I love the colour and vitality of plants and animals, but I also love to note the shapes and patterns of their parts: their leaves, petals, branches, or feathers, etc, particular to their species. The b/w technique brings out such details. Unfortunately this method does not work well on photos of all kinds of plants.
Black-and-white also serves to highlight the Branching Pattern of the leaves and branches, which is often not so obvious in coloured pictures. For instance, if I would sketch or paint a plant, I would not show all the veins of a leaf.
Why a Tangled Garden? Well. . . . . to begin with all my gardens have been pretty tangled, not to mention the fact that some of my favorite plants are weeds, including the dandelion! Not for me are neat mowed lawns, rectangular flowerbeds, symmetrical pathways etc.
But “tangled” here also hints at the inter-connectedness of plants, both above and below ground, not only the physical connections between the plants but also the interconnections between the plants and the insects, birds, animals etc that populate or visit the garden. Lastly, the whole world is a Tangled Garden. Life itself is a tangled garden! We depend on plants in many ways for our very existence.
Below is a selection of images from the series, but you can see them all, along with explanations, if any, here.
Clicking on some titles (blue with underlines) will enlarge, but cannot show the description, if any.
