THE MAGIC OF KEW GARDENS

David Jordan Frps

My first experience of visiting Kew Gardens was in February 2007. We had been visiting my stepson in London and although it was a cold rainy day, so it seemed a good idea to visit the gardens at the time. I have always been a ‘found detail’ or as Ansel Adams described them as ‘extractions’ type of photographer. At the time I was not aware of the photographic potential of Kew Gardens so when we arrived there it was a revelation, images just appeared from nowhere! This visit started me on my path of ‘found’ botanical photography, which culminated in my Visual Arts Fellowship in 2014 and successes in the 2016 and 2018 International Garden Photographer of the Year competitions.

Kew Gardens does offer the photographer a wide range of subjects in its 300 acres, many of them offering a wonderful mixture of textures, shapes and colours, the bare bones of photography. We found that if we were not careful, we can spend most of the day in the iconic Palm House, following the shifting shadows of the plants and windows around the building. There are some surprising ‘small’ areas to work in, such as the windows at back of the Waterlily House, that can yield amazing images.

You do not require particularly sophisticated photographic equipment to obtain good images from Kew Gardens, the ability to focus closely is highly desirable and having a reasonably good zoom range will allow you to obtain surprisingly good results, especially in the buildings. A bag full of large and heavy exotic lenses will not guarantee excellent results, it is all about seeing and having a sound understanding of how light works in creating striking images.

We have visited Kew Gardens many times since 2007 and we are still finding new subjects to photograph there. In recent years we have become

‘Friends of Kew’ which gives us unlimited access to the gardens for £68 per year. It also allows us to enter the gardens from 8am between May and September, two hours before the masses arrivewonderful!

The Creative Eye Group is having an outing to Kew Gardens on Saturday 27th October. My wife Joan and I will be acting as guides for the day. We will try to help the members of the group who attend to find interesting and, hopefully, effective images. If you wish to attend this outing, we will be meeting at the Victoria Gate at about 10.00am. Please let us know that you are intending to join us by e-mailing us at: daveandjoanjordan@yahoo.co.uk.

If you are curious about the images that can be taken at Kew Gardens have a look at the Kew folders on my Facebook page: David Jordan FRPS Photographs. The images included in this article range from some of the first images taken in February 2007 to those taken on our last trip in April 2018.

I look forward to seeing you there.