In late November last year I took myself to Japan to visit some gardens.
My itinerary was created from three sources: the rather ridiculously titled 1001 Gardens you must see before you die, edited by Rae Spencer Jones, , 100 Japanese Gardens by Stephen Mansfield, and the itinerary of Carolyn Mullet’s Carex tour to Japanese gardens which she was undertaking at more or less the same time as my own visit. I hadn’t at the time, watched Monty Dons two part TV programme (as it turned out I went to four of the gardens he had visited). From these rather inadequate researches I gave myself three locations to explore on my two week stay; Tokyo, Kyoto and Kanazawa, taking in thirty two parks and gardens.
Saiho-Ji Temple – many gardens have created views to be seen from inside buildings. Great if it’s raining.
Prior to this visit my experience and knowledge of Japan’s gardens was almost non-existent.
In the UK we have mostly ploughed our own fields when it comes to garden design. The world seems to know what an English Garden is supposed to look like. We do have a few gardens that have been heavily influenced by Italian Renaissance gardens. Our plant collectors have raided Japan (and everywhere else in the world) for countless plants but Japanese style gardens are mostly restricted to tiny pastiches such as that at Dartington Hall, which had left me so unimpressed I didn’t even take a picture of it when I visited. Or concrete reproductions of the Japanese stone lanterns (which are called Ishidoro) that people plonk in a bit of gravel and call a Japanese garden.
Almost every Japanese garden had one of these.
Anne thought to whet my appetite by suggesting I read The Inward Garden by Julie Moir Messervy.
I tried but got quickly bogged down with her intention that her book was going to help me make my own garden and, frankly, that horse has bolted. Anyway, I liked the idea that I would visit these gardens with little knowledge of them; I was travelling half way around the world – I wanted to be surprised. Having chosen what I had hoped to be some of the best, I read very little about them and only glanced at some images of my chosen destinations.
Tenryuji -an archetypal Zen garden
When I told my artist friend Paul about my plans he was shocked at how many places I intended to fit in.
“How are you going to absorb or process your visits” (I paraphrase). He understood, as I had not, that one of The Big Things about Japanese gardens is that they are very thought out and controlled. That they are highly intellectual, using the land to represent or invoke the surrounding natural landscapes. Once there, as I read the little leaflets that I received from the gardens as I paid my (usually) very modest entry fee, it was clear that a great deal of thought was behind every one of them, and the level of detail of thought was almost extreme, so that the placing of single rocks or stones was considered and believed to be important.
Ryoan Ji Temple – contemplating the rocks.
So, to my shame, I must admit that my approach to these gardens was almost entirely visual.
I photograph gardens semi-professionally. By that I mean that in the past I supplied images of plants and gardens to magazines to illustrate articles (many written by my wife, Anne Wareham). But I have never earned my living from this and these days my images are sent solely to GAP Gardens library. So when I made these brief (I spent no more than an hour or so in any garden) visits what I was doing was taking pictures the whole time, as if I was going to illustrate an article.
Murin –an – indoors.
In every visit I would take views of the entrance, signs and maps of the garden, small details isolated from their context as well as broad views that offer some sense of what the garden was about. Pics of people in the garden were always sought, whether it was gardeners at work, or of other visitors, looking at the garden or taking selfies. And if they were dressed in traditional costumes, so much the better.
Plant portraits were important; I had chosen what I had hoped would be the peak of Autumn colour, so close ups of maples, backlit, were a must. And the Japanese do extraordinary things with Chrysanthemums. Who knew?
In Japan this is called Ozukuri. This is one single plant.
In approaching the gardens in this way
I was making it almost impossible to allow what the creators of the gardens would have me do: contemplate, discover what I felt about the place, think about my surroundings. I did have feelings but those were mostly informed by what I was doing. I was visiting these gardens alongside hundreds of other people, all wanting to take pictures of the garden. Much of the time I was simply standing where I knew that I wanted a shot, building frustration as I waited for no one else to be in the picture.
Crowds like this are not uncommon.
A proper professional photographer of gardens invariably times their visit to coincide with the best light (usually early in the morning or just before dusk). On this trip I had to take what I was given and that ranged from the harshest of bright sun (such as at Muin-an – see above) to pouring rain (at Kenrokuen), and do what I could back at my desk with my processing of the images in Lightroom.
What really lifted my spirits was when I knew that I was making a strong image.
The fabulous, almost plant-less garden at the Canadian Embassy provided this in spades, with the added bonus that I had the place, astonishingly, to myself. Or when I could make a composition that seemed to encapsulate what the garden was about:
The Canadian Embassy, Tokyo
I came back with over 3,000 images. I have just finished editing and processing them and the result is 700 images for licence at Gap Gardens. Though they have been very clear with me that the world appears to have little interest in images from Japanese gardens. Shame.
What did I think about what I saw?
That might have to be another post. But when you visit a garden, I recommend that if you really want to get the spirit of the place, leave your camera behind.
Interesting thought on camera v no camera. Several friends get frustrated by my obsession to get ‘the shot’ when we visit gardens, and I have to remind myself to stop, and look (including your own lovely garden). Seeing hundreds of dolphins swimming off Sri Lanka, some people never saw them for themselves, too busy filming….. As an amateur photographer and keen gardener, it is finding that balance between drinking in the beauty and taking away an image that will give me pleasure later…. Unlimited time essential!
It’s funny- I almost never look back at my images once I have processed them and submitted them to the libraries I work for unless I am writing a blog post. When I use them to illustrate a blog- which will be an account of a walk I’ve done- they lead me often to find out more about what I have been looking at. They become a prompt to my education.
Dirty-kneed Gardener Award to Charles for best concluding sentence in a Rant.
I’m honoured! And am frequently of dirty knees.
I loved this double hatted piece. It’s both an armchair visit to Japanese gardens and a reminder of how to make and experience art.
Thanks Debra. I wonder how different my pics would have been if I’d taken more time in the gardens? Even when photographing “professionally” I still as always rushing around a garden to make the best use of that brief early morning magic light.
Great article! The picture of the garden w/ the crowds reminded me of my frustration when I visit gardens & I often feel that the experience of the garden is basically ruined by the presence of all the people. Of course this feeling is ironic, or paradoxical, or something, since obviously I am one of the people ruining it for others, but nevertheless…
Thanks Mary. I know exactly what you mean. My best garden visits have mostly been when I’ve had the privilege of being the only person there. My most memorable professional shoot was when I was given access to Chatsworth House in Derbyshire at dusk and the Grand Cascade was turned on just for my benefit. One time I was lucky enough to have Bomarzo in Italy to myself on a miserably misty day (the best time to see that garden!). In Japan I enjoyed the people watching and taking snaps of them -especially the gardeners- as well as the challenge of waiting for the chance to pretend that there was no one else there.
Accepting the reality of the crowds and turning the visit into a people-watching exercise is a good response.
Crowds of people are just so demoralizing, though. For example, I had dreamed since childhood of seeing the acropolis, but when I finally went, it was hot, dusty, and packed with people. Not how I imagined it! The experience of seeing it from a distance (later that evening from the rooftop restaurant at our hotel, sipping wine and sitting down) was much more satisfying.
I think that’s why I may never visit the Taj Mahal- unless I’m offered a private viewing.
Right! I have found that reading a good writer’s description of a place is often more satisfying than seeing the place in person. E.g., I was enthralled by the Greece described by John Knowles in his novel The Magus. Then when I visited Greece years later, it was Cruise Ship Central.
I have wanted to visit Japan for 45 years. I once had a Japanese friend who was a very good gardener. He died young and so the desire faded until I read your story. Thanks for taking me on a beautiful tour. So many gardens in such a short time. I’m a slow poke. I doubt I could have made one-third of these.
Well, it was only a glimpse, but if you click on the link that Anne put in my biog for GAP it cleverly shows my most recent pics first and you can see all 700 at your leisure.
Oops. It’s the link in the post itself to use- the one in my biog links to my walking blog. C
Thanks for bringing back my January-February 1979 visit to Japan, five weeks hosteling and couch surfing, though the term hadn’t been invented. I was usually the only, and often lonely, visitor in the cold and now see how fortunate I was! Though the autumn color was all gone, the plum blossom, the so skillfully wrapped trees (for winter protection) and a lovely snow muting the garish colors at Nikko temple stand out in memory, now 45 (!!) years on. Winter bare didn’t matter so much in those intellectually rich gardens. For a fascinating novel of Japanese garden-making (among much else) try “The Garden of Evening Mists” by Tan Twan Eng.
I always feel touched when a post prompts a reader’s memories. Thank you for this excellent response.
I meant to add that they not only wrap and build protective pyramids of ropes over their trees but I also saw such protection over some of their stone lanterns. Their maintenance of their gardens is also extraordinary.
I disagree. The camera reminds me to stop and look more closely, notice the movement of the grasses and the shadow of a cloud, catch a mysterious cluster of rocks or record the pattern of maple leaves on a transparent paper wall. I visited Japan in 1999 to discover Japanese gardens on my own too. The only garden travel book at the time was Mark Treib’s “Guide to the Gardens of Kyoto”. The best reason to take a camera on such a journey is so that you can revisit a scene, to look deeper and relate what you have seen and experienced to the bigger picture. Especially since, very much like England, all of Japan is a garden. Cheers!
You have prompted my memories of Kyoto some 45 years ago when I was guided by a young physics student who led me to a temple garden at dawn. As we sat on an engawa he softly suggested: ‘please look to your heart’s content.’ I spent the month of November riding a bicycle under the falling leaves of gingko trees. No camera, but the images are engraved in my memory! I saw gardeners in one place cutting off the downward-facing needles of a pine tree. Such concentration, and care.
Beautiful memory; I came back with a yearning for a Ginko. I’m not sure if Anne has conceded.
I’m very happy to hear a different point of view, though I’d argue til the cows come home over “all of Japan is a garden”. The long journey across from Tokyo to Kyoto presented me with wide plains and distant hills that had little of geographic interest and little to none from a garden perspective save for some topiarised back yard pines. I’d concede that the density of gardens in Kyoto is extraordinary; no city in England (or indeed the UK), could compare.
For those in the US, the Japanese Garden in Portland, Oregon is well worth a visit.
https://japanesegarden.org/
Yes — I’ve got to get back to that PDX garden soon. (I’m in Corvallis — are you nearby, Linda?)
I went to Hidcote a few years ago; nice garden (in that it was a beautiful garden and also slightly underwhelming, although maybe my expectations were too high?) but trying to get a sense of place with coachloads of other people wandering around was a bit challenging. Just why is it that when you’ve just got a shot lined up someone appears out of nowhere and just stands in the way?!
I’m very much guilty of seeing a garden visit as a ‘photographic expedition’. Now that I’m aware of my bad habit I’m trying to look at and conciously experience a garden, even if I do then take a picture too. It’s so easy to fall back into bad habits.
It’s called Sod’s Law.
No guilt is applicable for this camera-led garden visiting; just, perhaps, some missed opportunities to discover our responses. But some places just cut through and sock you for six. Isola Bella did that for me, La Balze also in Florence. Ninfa also but the light there was georgeous.
For some unknown reason my phone quit working while touring the Pitti Palace galleries in Florence. I had been snapping pics day after day – and then discovered the pleasure of just looking.
My first thought was that finding that out could be quite traumatic but it sounded like it was A Good Thing. It’s a challenge to do this intentionally, though. In some ways I corrupt my experience of the countryside though the fact that I illustrate my walking blog with pics.
Terrific post Charles — I have so many thoughts – I’ll try to keep them brief. First one as a parent, believe it or not. 20 years ago it was flipping obvious to me that 80% of the parents around me were not experiencing their children’s childhood as much as they were documenting it. We’d be at a festival or on a hike or somewhere, and the parents would be behind a camera or video camera, and gradually, a phone, and never fully present. Those 5 and 10 year olds are now 25 and 30 and have never known an undocumented moment. Can’t imagine the pressure now with phones in pockets.
In any case, that was as obvious as obvious could be to me. Except. It has not been obvious to me when visiting gardens I have never seen before, and I wonder if this is because it is what I do as a profession, or because I have become so used to documenting what I am seeing, that I am like that parent at the playground.
When Andrea Gasper went with Scott and I to the Huntington in Pasadena last March, we all had a gin and tonic at the end of the day and she said (with some frustration after being with two geeks all day) “I challenge the two of you to walk through a garden and never take ONE photo, never say ONE name aloud.” We both said we didn’t know if we could do it, I’m sad to say.
There is one more layer of complexity however. When one invests a great deal of time and treasure in seeing a garden that one may never see again, the stakes feel higher to document it. But I think (in my heart) that your concluding sentence is the right approach for full appreciation. I saw that clearly as a parent – not as clear as a gardener. Which is why I have more pictures of my plants than of my children! – MW
Thanks M. Really interesting about the whole pics of the children phenomenon. I do feel a bit of of a fraud here. A big “do as I say not as I do” syndrome. I plead special circumstances as almost any pic I take may find a home in a commercial library. I’m even grateful when plants are labelled when I won’t do that in my own garden. Though plant ID apps are pretty good they fail on named varieties. At the same time I feel slightly sad for myself that I’m always seeing the garden through the prism of photography.
I have never been one to take pictures . I want to be in the moment and I take horrible photos and have no patience to try to be better. That said, I appreciate all the great photos others take. I miss postcards! Pictures already taken and labeled.
You say you miss postcards but have you discovered that on your smartphone you can get an app that makes your own postcards from a pic taken on the smartphone, and you can caption them and then they get posted for you. The one I use in the UK is called Touchnote. You buy a certain number of credits. It has transformed the whole sending postcards thing for me.
That’s cool!
It is. Try it out.
A garden visit without a camera has happened only very rarely. One was a visit to Highgrove, where visitors were not allowed take photographs but, ironically, were greeted by an “official photographer” just before the end of the tour with an offer to have a photograph taken in the garden … and an exorbitant price! Another occasion was a visit to a well-known celebrity’s garden as he didn’t wish to have images posted online etc. Otherwise, a camera is part and parcel of a garden visit for me.
Yes, we went to Highgrove, too, with their photo embargo. And on reflection I’m not sure my visitor experience was transformed by my cameras absence but it wasn’t a garden that did much for me anyway. We weren’t offered the rip-off deal.
Of course you were; it was all a rip off!
I recently visited all three cities you mentioned (plus Osaka, Okayama, and Naoshima), and saw quite a few of the same sights. So, I have some opinions on the camera vs. no camera issue!
My husband (the superior photographer) and I decided a few trips ago that we’d only try on each trip to get a handful of good photos of us for the Xmas card, and a handful of good photos of major/important sights to enjoy later. Otherwise, we just take simple snapshots to document what we’ve visited. If we’re really enjoying the photo-taking itself one day, we definitely indulge, but there’s no pressure to get “great” photos every single place we visit. It is just too distracting from the experience, and we just can’t get properly good photos in many places due to crowds, weather, etc. In Okayama in particular, it just wasn’t quite the right time of year for the garden, so we enjoyed it, but skipped photography entirely and just relaxed.
We have also given up on bringing a “real” camera, because while that produces better photos, it’s not worth it to us to carry the extra equipment around constantly.
Instead, we try to contemplate and just soak in what we see. We still end up with a lot of snapshots, and some of them end up pretty darn good! But, we try to not stress it too much.
Thanks for continuing this discussion Sarah. You two have obviously thought this through, and are striking a balance between being snap happy and picture less. It’s stating the obvious but when there is a potential commercial value to the images it changes everything. Before making trip I checked the library I send pics to and found very few from Japan. I took over 3,000 images on the trip and this week finished the process of editing and submitting and have ended up with over 700 images added to my stock. But it meant I took pics at every visit – even in the pouring rain at Kenrokuen. Paradoxically, on reflection, whereas ordinarily I might have gone home and plan to come another day, there was no other day to be had in my itinerary so I pressed on and quite enjoyed the challenge. One of the captions of an image accepted from this visit ended up “Japanese couple looking at garden holding umbrellas with rain streaks visible against their clothing.”
When I worked as a museum educator children would tell me they forgot their cameras. I told them to take “mental pictures” – memories. It wouldn’t be the same but it took the anxiety off for some and let them enjoy the experience. I love having a camera (I RARELY use the phone camera) but often simply visit, take a few pictures and then look more without using it. It’s a balance, especially if you are used to being the one who documents as you have done with Anne’s articles. (and very nicely, I might add). Thanks for the thoughtful last sentence. Will you be able to take your own advice?
Hi Kris. I have to confess (see above replies) NOT to be able to take my own advice. Also, Anne almost always uses her own pics for her pieces.