The Garden Book

Snow falling on red maples, clematis clambering along a cedar fence, summer poppies dancing in the wind--these are the images of The Garden captured in the supernal lens of Freeman Patterson. The renowned photographer invites readers to experience the unfolding seasons in more than 100 images of Shamper's Bluff--a rocky, forested peninsula jutting into Belleisle Bay in New Brunswick's lower St John River Valley. Patterson donated most of the land in this private ecological reserve to the Nature Conservancy of Canada in return for life tenancy. As an artist, Patterson's aim is to keep his "seeing" fresh, to avoid looking at or photographing anything in consistently predictable or stereotypical ways. His images are as crisp as fresh snow on high-bush cranberries or as impressionistic as the fleeting beauty of sun and mist. His prose reveals the garden as a place of meditation and healing: "Anybody who enjoys natural things, who values the experience of walking in falling snow, canoeing in a morning mist, or picking raspberries in an old pasture wants time to savour the experience--to see and hear and taste and smell and, most of all, to feel." The redemptive power of nature shines through these pages. As spring comes to the garden, "everything good seems possible again". Those who experience this artist's corner of the world will see why. --Carolyn Leitch, Amazon.caRead More