Wordless Wednesday 10.20.10

Photographed @ Chanticleer

Man-Eating Plants!!!

OK, have I got your attention? Good. Now take your mouse, tickle it, and head straight over to Dark Roasted Blend for a superlative photo collection of carnivorous plants in all their resplendent glory. These pix are just great, and the whole carnivorous clan is represented, from pitcher plants to sundews and venus flytraps. The only one missing and--come to think of it--the only actual man-eater is Audrey, the vexing vegetation from the Little Shop of Horrors. Though none of these are hungry for Homo sapiens, some are big enough to eat a rat. Yum!

Beth Dow's Garden Dreams

Beth Dow photographs all kinds of things, but she creates particularly dreamlike black-and-white images of English and Italian gardens. The limited tonal range of the overall photos, and the spooky aura that seems to emanate from some of the brighter objects makes these gardens seems rooted in the imagination rather than the earth. There's a mystical quality to her work.

Here's what Beth has to say about her photographs, from her website: "These recent photographs were taken in formal English and Italian gardens. The shape and mystery of these places are a natural draw for me as they offer glimpses of the rich traditions of garden making. I am interested in garden history and historical concepts of paradise, and aim for pictures that have a meditative quality to reflect the spiritual urges that inspired the earliest gardens some six thousand years ago."

For more Beth Dow, a slideshow of her discussing her work can be found here.

Hat tip: Dark Roasted Blend

Moss Man Needs Your Help

Happy Earth Day! Just because Moss Man is looking out for our planet doesn't mean the rest of us can slack off. We all need to do what we can to defend our environment. And happily, gardening is a great way to do that. So, go plant a tree.

Moss Man is the alter ego of Nashville's J. Paul Moore--gardener and photographer extraordinaire--who took this kooky self portrait (and sent it to me after I pleaded for a few shots from his Moss Man series). Enjoy his great garden slide show; on the opening page of his site, click on portfolio, then gardens. While you're at it, his show on architecture features some terrific gardenesque hardscaping and his scenic nature series reminds us of just how beautiful our home planet can be.

Rusaman Rules the Roost

Rusaman is a Japanese(?) photographer about whom I know virtually nothing. Nada. Zilch. But the guy takes some great pictures, employing a vast range of styles. Here are a few I loved. Is that chicken cool or what?

Shout out: TYWKIWDBI

Lush Landscapes, From All Over

A portfolio of eye-popping images of extraordinary landscapes is available here. Wish I knew who the photog was, but since I can't read Polish (I think it's Polish), I haven't a clue. Some of the other portfolios on this site are worth a look too. Anyway, enjoy!

Shout out: TYWKIWDBI

Backyard Birds 'n Bugs

Extraordinary photos of backyard birds and bugs are the province of Rick Lieder. Rick's a sci-fi illustrator who, in his spare time, hunkers down amid the plants in his Michigan backyard and spends hours stalking the local birds and bugs, waiting for the perfect moment. His eye for composition and fine natural light produce incredible results. You can see a wide selection at his site, or hunker down yourself and purchase "Aerial Acrobats", his new book of backyard bird photos. Tip 'o the hat to Duncan Brine.

Honey, I Shrunk the Garden!

Calling all photo geeks! The weird and wonderful technique of tiltshifting your photos magically transforms real world scenes into something that looks like a miniature trainset model. It's fun to try with garden scenes, travel shots, or just about anything. This digital re-imagining of an old view-camera technique turns proper perspective on its head. Photographers prized the old, accordionlike camera's shift and tilt controls to correct the problems they encountered when photographing architecture and similar subjects that had to be rendered in perfect perspective.

Tiltshift uses those same techniques and another trick or two to narrow a photo's depth of field, accentuate some of its color, and manipulate the image enough to make the subject look like a miniature. You can tiltshift your own photos here. Not every picture translates well; the best bet is for views taken from above that encompass a large scene with plenty of foreground and background. Close-ups won't work well at all . Anyway, you can get tips about the right kinds of photos to use here, and see some terrific examples here. Tip o' the hat to boingboing.

Eden All Aglow

Light as a garden ornament...who'd a thunk it? But this winter there's a glow in the night skies over the Eden Project in Cornwall, England thanks to Bruce Munro’s magical Field of Light installation. The British lighting maestro was inspired by a trip through the Australian desert, where the mysterious rhythms and ephemeral blooms were totally re-imagined in this vast illuminated sculpture, with some 6,000 bulb-topped fiber optic light stems connected almost 15 miles of fiber optic cable.

“The idea was originally conceived fifteen years ago during a trip through central Australia," says Munro on Eden Project's website. "I wanted to create a field of light stems that, like the dormant seed in a dry desert, would quietly wait until darkness falls, and then, under a blazing blanket of southern stars, bloom with gentle rhythms of light. One's attention is thus drawn to the nature that surrounds the installation as well as the Field Of Light itself.”

Munro's lights recall, to me anyway, the luminous glassworks created by Dale Chihuly that have in recent years become all the rage at cutting edge gardens. Maybe those two should work together. The Eden Project, BTW, is a fairly new public garden and environemental education center in Cornwall, a series of huge, dome-shaped greenhouses--one of which is the world's largest, called biomes, which house recreated, idealized ecosystems from all over the world. Because of its unusally temperate climate, Cornwall and its many unlikely gardens have been on my wish list of horticultural travel destinations for years; here's one more reason to go. But, I don't think I'll make it before Field of Light closes this spring.

Another Side of Serbia

I just happened on a remarkable Flickr portfolio of otherworldy images of Serbia. They are mostly landscapes, and for the most part exude an unearthly beauty. Who'd have guessed it, from a place so recently in the news for all the wrong reasons? The photos are all richly captioned with intriguing factoids and fascinating historical details. Thanks to Dark Roasted Blend for pointing the way.

A Visit From The Iceman

Old Man Winter came calling last night, and left his signature in the backyard. His first visits have a gentle, teasing beauty. The icy lace he left behind drapes across clumps of Japanese maiden grass (Miscanthus sinensis 'Morning Light') and the twisting branches of a cut leaf sumac (Rhus typhina 'Laciniata'), outlines a false cypress 'Fernspray' (Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Fernspray'), encapsulates the bright red berries of a 'Rosy Glow' barberry (Berberis thunbergii 'Rosy Glow'), and dusts a few coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) seedheads. The Old Man will be back soon, and he'll mean business. But for now, his visit is just something to enjoy.

Three Ways to Wear Plants

Clothes make the man, or so it's been said. But what about plants? The Irish talk about the wearin' of the green, but long before there was any concept of Irish, or really, any concept beyond tribe, fops flaunted foliage and flowers as finery at just about any significant gathering, just as these kids are doing in this set of phenomenal photographs by Hans Silvester taken among the Surma and Mursi tribespeople of Ethiopa's Omo Valley. Loads of these dramatic images are collected in Silvester's book, Natural Fashions.



Anyhooo, I'm thinking that, as far as fashionable foliage goes, this look represents the traditional, having been part of humanity's attire for thousands of years. Foliage and flowers, in fact, were the first kinds of clothing ever worn, and these young men and women have mastered the art of accessorizing.



Let's make the leap from Africa to present-day Paris, where fashion-forward models are strolling the runways in their own little leafy get ups. Actually this dress is the creation of plantsman extraordinaire Patrick Blanc, best known for his remarkable wall gardens gracing buildings all over the world (See examples of his work and read an interview here.) A few years ago, he turned to fashion, and designed a wedding dress, which he called the "Robe Vegetale", for couturier Jean-Paul Gaultier. This is definitely a high-end, haute couture approach to wearing plants.



Lastly, there's the fusion approach to the wearin' of the green. This takes us both back and forward in time. Back to the Green Man, the emblematic manifestation of humankind's kinship with the natural world as expressed by dieties and mythic figures linked to agricultural cycles and the plant kingdom. The Green Man has been linked, conceptually at least, to figures such as Osiris, John Barleycorn, Godin, and the Celtic god Viridios, whose name means green man. The Green Man's image-a face emerging from a swirl of leaves and vines, is often depicted on churches and has become a popular garden ornament. Here are several interpretations of the Green Man, including the traditional masklike motif, and a dandefied version painted by Kathleen O'Connell.



Finally, we race back to the future with this post-modern looking Green Man, whose vague sense of unease may reflect a deep seated uncertainty about contemporary humanity's relationship with nature. Or the image (sorry, no idea who created this intriguing photograph, or the drawing-love to credit them if I could) may simply reflect the understandable angst of waking up one morning to discover that you are half plant.

Great Views of a Great French Garden

I don't know how many of you may read my other blog Gardening Gone Wild, a group effort with Frannie Sorin, Nan Ondra, Saxon Holt, and Barbara Ellis, but if you missed Nan's post about photos of a fabulous French garden, Le Jardin Plume, and its photo-rich website, do yourself a favor and get over to GGW soon as you can, or hop directly to Le Jardin Plume.

Pretty Pollen

Who'd have guessed this spiky orb is a grain of morning glory (Ipomoea purpurea) pollen, and not some strange sci-fi asteroid? Electron microscopes, such as the one at Dartmouth's Rippel Electron Microscope Facility which made these photos, give us a whole new view of worlds hidden until this incredible technology could reveal them. The morning glory is colorized; electron microscopes "see" in black and white. A truer view can be seen in the picture of collected grains of pollen from sunflower (Helianthus annuus), morning glory (Ipomea purpurea), hollyhock (Sildalcea malviflora), lily (Lilium auratum), primrose (Oenothera fruticosa) and castor bean (Ricinus communis). More cool color-enhanced images of pollen can be found here, and more black and white pollen shots here. Prowling around at this site will uncover other microworld wonders: nicotiana leaves, coleus stems and other botanic bits.

Garden Touring with Clive

Clive Nichols is one of my favorite garden photographers. And he's shot at many of the very best gardens in England and on the continent, such as Nicole de Vesian's in Provence, France (pictured). It's nice, every so often, to visit his site, and wade through the thousands of pictures he has online. I always find inspiration--sometimes for making gardens, sometimes for making pictures. Clive also wrote a top notch how-to garden photography book: Photographing Plants & Gardens. For my money, it provides a lot more practical advice than his recent, stunning The Art of Flower & Garden Photography.

Yikes! Scary Spiders!

Check 'em out here. Webs too!

Planetary Patterns

Seeing the world from above sometimes reveals all kinds of unexpected images. Take, for example, the astounding geometric grace of the world's largest plant maze--10 acres-as seen by ace aerial photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand. Sunflowers and corn are used to create new mass maze every year at this site in Reignac-sur-Indre in France. Or how about Yann's photograph of this amazing heart-shaped clearing in a mangrove swamp in New Caledonia. These two photographs are but a sampling of the nearly 2,000 spectacular aerial images from all over the world available for free as wallpaper from his website. Thanks to his largesse, you could redo your wallpaper every day for almost 6 years. And get a whole new view of our world in the process.

Japanese Maple Magic

I have yet to meet a Japanese maple I didn't like. They have just about every attribute you could want from a small tree: Graceful habit, a right-sized cultivar for almost any size bed or border, attractive foliage that keeps its looks all season long. There are the beautiful butter-gold leaves of Acer shirasawanum 'Aureum', orangey Acer palmatum 'Katsura' and the burgundy hues of many others. OK, so they don't flower dramatically--some do have emerging leaves in colors vivid enough and shapes intriguing enough to challenge many a blossom. And then there's fall color, perhaps the Japanese maple's most attention-getting feature.

I have a unique opportunity to appreciate that not far from home. Of course I can revel in my own many maples, but a few miles away in wooded neighborhood, someone must have planted a few quite a number of years ago. Now, a whole swatch of woodland is awash in Japanese maples. They've been hybridizing themselves, and seeding around for years. And each fall, they put on the best show in town. Tempted though I am to take a shovel and do a little digging, I restrain myself and take only pictures. For more fall foliage photos, check in at The Home Garden, where Dave is hosting the Garden Bloggers' Fall Color Project.

Color on the Wing

Fashion photographer Solve Sundsbo turned his lens on a faster-moving subject-- a parroquet --to create a collection of still photos and brief videos brimming with dazzling color and graceful motion. These spectacularly beplumed birds are vivid testimony to nature's often exuberant palette and, possibly, an inspiration. Imagine a garden of these colors.

Wordless Wednesday