Arabesque in Gumboots
I'm an older lady gardener - not quite as well-balanced of leg and flexible of hip as I used to be. I can't lunge into the garden undergrowth anymore (like my younger horticultural colleagues).
Pink Hellebores
This sad home truth was brought home to me the other day, when I was on a mission to photograph my Hellebores. These beautiful winter roses flower shyly for me in shades of white, pale green, rose pink and red, and can be found in many of the Moosey garden beds.
Hellebore and Gardeners Thumb
As an ex-mathematician I should understand angles. But when I tried to hold the camera at ground level to capture images of these lovelies I ended up with pictures of stalks or sky - nothing much in between! My Hellebores continued to hang their heads stubbornly downwards.
Blue Pansy in Glorious Full Close-Up
Lunging Lady Gardeners?
Do other mature lady garden photographers attempt to lunge gracefully into their Hellebore beds? Or do they lie on their stomachs in the dirt, flattening all the emerging bulbs? Perhaps they use an aerobics stretching pose dimly remembered from younger, more athletic days...
And I now know why I like pansies, though - they have the good breeding to at least look sideways. Photographing a pansy requires minimal bending - and sneaky pictures of pansies in pots can be passed off as the real garden thing...
Daffodil technique?
I need a technique for taking pictures of my patches of daffodils. How exciting it is to find the early ones flowering, but how quickly their heads (and stems) start to droop towards the centre of the earth. I'm an honest garden image recorder - not for me the pick it and poke it back into the plant method (though I have occasionally resorted to the hidden hand trick).
Daffodils under the Cabbage Tree
One thing is for sure - photographs of Moosey caught trying to execute a stately arabesque in gumboots (like an aged dying country swan) are definitely not for publication!