
Inspecting, Allan O'Connor Searches for Botrytis
Sometimes in our desire to be eco-green warriors we forget what an unnatural art form gardening can be. Without our almost daily care, even the most naturalistic garden will soon began its progression back to a common field.
Canadian artist Scott McFarland reminds us of this symbiotic alliance between humans and plants in this series of photographs I came across the other day.
As a magazine garden editor who has spent years striving (unconsciously?) to keep the more mundane, behind-the-scenes work invisible from magazine readers, I appreciate McFarland's unromantic revelation of what all goes on backstage before the curtain to the general public rises.
From his gallery:"The space of the garden has long been affiliated with that of photography - many early photographers experimented with the cumbersome, expensive medium by photographing their immediate outdoor surroundings; McFarland has suggested associations between the idiosyncrasies in garden maintenance and those of photographic development processes. Both gardening and photography utilize the same basic elements; light for exposure and energy and liquids for hydration and processing."