This Can't Be Happening

saxonholt
-
0

 

gas bubbles and detached retina
Detached retina and blurry vision

Here’s the deck behind my house, sideways and blurry.

The very day I went to see the eye doctor, I shot a video of the deck after talking with an editor at Taunton Books about future projects.  I used the video feature of my G11 camera to shoot the deck as a potential photo location, but did not get around to preparing the file before my appointment.

Little did I know I had a detached retina and would be whisked off to University of San Francisco Medical Center that afternoon as if it were a medical emergency.  There is no denying the queasy feeling of several doctors hovering around examined me, knowing the Giant’s best pitcher, Tim Lincecum, was off to a shaky start in the first game of the World Series.  Fortunately, the resulting procedure that night, a pneumatic retinopexy, was done in the clinic and I was able to keep up with the game because my brother, Mike, had his smart phone.

The Giants ended up routing the Ranger’s best pitcher; and I had to begin holding my head sideways so the gas bubble in my eye could hold the retina in place.  Real queasiness set in.

My vision is not only quite blurry in the left eye, I can actually see the gas bubble.  And actually it is not one bubble but a little foamy gathering of dark shapes much like what I added to the photo above.  Over the next few days the little bubbles joined together and the gas bubble was absorbed.

I find it fascinating that the bubble moved around my eye as I turned my head.  I would occasionally look straight down, out of simple curiosity, and found the vision was a little better, but as if looking through a giant bubble wand, the kind that kids play with, a very blurry halo.  Looking for a way to express this with a photo I shot this Echeveria sitting in a pot on my driveway.

offset blur from detached retina

Perception is a strange thing, each of us brings our own set of assumptions as we interpretation things around us.  Finding ways to express this and to tweak our normal assumptions about how we perceive the world is a very useful thing for artists.  This may provide me with some great new ideas.  Can’t wait to be able to use the computer again when all this clears up.

But the procedure did not work and the retina is still detached.  Now what ?

 

It Started with Blurry Vision

saxonholt
-
0

blurry 'Apple Blossom' camellia

It began with a vague suspicion.  Was my vision, out there in the outer periphery of the left eye, blurry?  Now, you say, how could you not know your retina was becoming detached ?

The blurriness of my eye was a filminess that would surely blink  away.  I was busy – my eyes in constant use in an unusually busy late season of shooting.  Once I slow down, and less time fussing over the computer, resting my eyes, this will go away.

On my week in Seattle I would pay close attention, and the blur was with me all the time.  But was this fuzziness only at the edge of my glasses, some new function of my nearsightedness ?  I vowed to call my optician when I returned.  This was weird, a bit scary, and not going away.

On my Monday return, after my final morning workshop at SFBG, I called my eye doctor to find he was out of town.  By this time, two weeks into wondering about the blur, I did not want to wait another week.  I called Kaiser, my HMO.  The Kaiser folks advised I see their ophthalmologist, not my optician, and we set up a Wednesday afternoon appointment.

Hardy Succulents – The Book

saxonholt
-
0
Hardy Succulents – The Book

Cover Hardy Succulents bookWhen Gwen Steege, my editor at Storey Books, asked if I would be interested in a succulent book, I could hardly believe my ears.  I live in California where succulents have become a staple of gardens.  Many a great fine art photographer has studied them.  Their shape, colors, and form offer never-ending variety.

Garden at Solana Succulents

I couldn’t wait to start.  Then I talked to the author.

The best assignments offer the opportunity to study a subject in depth, to learn and then communicate.  So I was delighted to find that Gwen Kelaidis, an experienced gardener in Colorado and long time editor of the Rock Garden Society was the writer.

Gwen lives in Denver, zone 5, and told me in no uncertain terms that no photos were to be taken in California.  What !?  Then she explained the book was “hardy” succulents, targeted for gardeners who dealt with real winters.

Agave parryi in Colorado garden
Hardy succulent, Agave parryi v. neomexicana, with sharp purple spines in drought tolerant Colorado garden

In California, succulents grow big because the climate is so mild.  The same succulent that might be hardy in a cold climate would grow much too large in California, so photos  could be misleading.  A wise woman that Gwen, acerbic, trenchant, and quite determined to make a book that would lead to success.

hardy succulents peckerwood garden
Agave and Nolina, drought tolerant succulents by blue garden wall at Peckerwood garden, Texas

 

Cactus in containers under scree in Connecticut patio garden

So, I got a travel budget and went to Colorado, to Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Texas.  I did sneak in a few California gardens such as Ruth Bancroft’s, and visited many I could not include.  For research purposes of course.

Drought tolerant hen and chicks hardy succulent Sempervivum 'Sir William Lawrence' with maroon tipped leaf
Drought tolerant hen and chicks hardy succulent Sempervivum ‘Sir William Lawrence’ with maroon tipped leaf

Many of the those California photos, while not part of Hardy Succulents become part of The Green Wall, an exhibition of large canvas prints.  More about these prints.

Order the book at Amazon.  Order autographed copy from me.

Grasses – The Book

saxonholt
-
0
Grasses – The Book

grasses_cover_1024edge.jpgGrasses – Versatile Partners for Uncommon Garden Design was my first book with Story Publishing and the first time I teamed up with a writer to author a book.  And boy, was I glad to team up with Nancy Ondra, the extraordinary gardener and wonderful writer, way cross country in Pennsylvania.

We worked across the country and only met once, but the collaboration was classic and we created a book that has sold more than 100,000 copies.  I loved her outline, giving me free reign to find grasses used in all sorts of ornamental horticulture, and was delighted when she worked in photos I shot, just because I was entranced.

Grgrasses - pennisetum backlit

And entranced I was; and entranced I continue to be.   I traveled across the country for a year, meeting gardeners, nurserymen, designers, and collectors – grassaholics who inspired me to keep shooting.  Highlights had to be going to Heronswood nursery and the great garden of Dan Hinkley, meeting Neil Diboll of Prairie Nursery, and my first visit to Longwood Gardens.

grasses at heronswood nursery
Heronswood Nursery – Grass and sedge garden tapestry, Milium effusum ‘Aureum’ and Carex comans,

I began my obsession with grasses doing volunteer work for The Nature Conservancy whose botanist gave me my first connection with botanic nomenclature, so by cleverly connecting with renowned grass experts I made possible all the identification and captioning.  Thanks Storey Publishing for giving me a travel budget….

While on the lecture circuit when the book came out, at one stop I shared a stage with Jim Folsom of The Huntington Botanical Garden.  Jim was giving a presentation on photosynthesis he called “Harvesting the Light”.  I unabashedly stole that phrase.  It perfectly describes what grasses do in a garden in front of a camera.

Cortaderia richardii, tall ornamental Pampas grass catching sunlight. Garden of Linda Cochran
Cortaderia richardii, tall ornamental Pampas grass catching sunlight. Garden of Linda Cochran

And once I had spent a year photographing gardens using grasses as ornamental specimens and partners in garden design, I realized one of the best uses of grasses was hardly touched. Entire gardens of grasses, tall and short could evoke meadows and replace lawns.

path through meadow garden

Meadows by Design would come along a few years later.

Autographed copies of Grasses – Versatile Partners for Uncommon Garden Design or at Amazon.

 

1...567Page 7 of 7