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Inspiration can come from many places. I am by nature curious and my reading pile reflecting this. It is a tall pile of books and varied in it’s topic matter. Books I have found to be invaluable to the growth of myself as a creative.

I often pick up books about flower design. I read them partly for the beauty. Some times they are photographed by a photographer I admire. Other times it is simply so I can find new ways to capture my garden.

One book I picked up recently and enjoyed was “From Seed to Bloom” by Milli Proust. Milli’s Instgram is a visual feast of beautiful sustainably grown flowers while the photographer for the book, Eva Nemeth, is an artist I admire hugely. As I read through this book I found when Milli started talking about the mechanics of floral arranging there were some great tips for how to compose a photo.

For reference if you happen to have a copy of the book I am referring to a section called The Principles pages 54-55. Yup just two pages but they offer a lot.

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Just of you. Moments Volume 1. A collection of words and images from my recent trip to Australia. You are receiving this as part of your paid subscription to my newsletter. I just wanted to take a moment to say I am very grateful for your support and I hope you enjoy this first volume. I had a lot of fun creating it for you.

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I am here at the keyboard writing my once a month newsletter that is a conversation about how to take photos, how to take photos of a garden or nature, how to carve out some time for yourself, a little moment to reset and revisit oneself. I pick a theme and then I structure it into a formula, thinking in my naivety that this is how to share my thoughts, to converse. I think that giving structure will make me more sure of what I want to say. That planning sections will give more purpose. It won’t. The more I learn about gardening, nature and creative work the more I understand it is messy. It is not linear. That it follows no set course. This is where the problem lies, humans like to box things, give structure in a vain hope of understanding and sadly to control. I realise that as uncomfortable as this makes me feel I need to dig deeper into this unsturctured line of thought. I need to let the garden be messy and grow as it wishes and I need to converse the same way. I need to embrace the bad photos and keep trying even if I don’t understand what I trying to do at times. Why? Because that is the conversation I want to have with you. All the gardening, all the photos and creativeness that comes with it is about the messy exploration of self. This is the story I want to share. So this month’s volume will be a messy mish mash of what I started to create and then what I messily created. A conversation that starts with a point and then like all good conversations meanders off into some thing else, like that something that was on the tip of my tongue but seems to have gotten away on me.

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I plant a seed. It is a dahlia seed, picked from a dried flower head last autumn, stored in a container over the winter and in spring the seeds are sprinkled over some soil in a pot, placed on the windowsill with some water and left. A week or so pass and shoots appear. They stretch up to the light, hunting for it. The shoot becomes a stem. Leaves appear. It grows. The seed knows how to grow. It is part of who it is.

As children we are born with this same wisdom. For the most part we know what we need to be who we are. However as we grow from children into adults we accumulate social niceties good or bad. Things happen to us. While we have an understanding of our essential self, we do tend to go along with what is required of us as members of society and sometimes we forget how wise we are.

Wisdom is all that you carry within yourself. It is your unique perspective of the world. We are like a seed. We know the conditions we need to grow in, we just sometimes loose this with all that comes with life.

“Wisdom in photos allows you to speak in a different way.”

Julie DuBose, “Effortless Beauty”

After reading this sentence I asked myself when did I last feel wise? When did I last acknowledge how wise I am? When did I last listen to my wisdom? I realised it gets lost in the clutter of every day life and as result we sometimes forget that we are wise creatures. These words encouraged me to embrace my wisdom and to step in the creative direction it was encouraging me to go, even if it was a different path to my contempories.

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The idea of creating a community space has been quietly brewing for a number of years. We have plans of owning a bit of land where our bees can be in one space, where a big pollination garden can be developed and where we can share this with others - perhaps providing inspiration. The search for land continues and while it does, I experiment in my garden. I plant and grow with my bees in mind. I take photos and write words to share my garden space virtually with others until I can do it in really life. Haven: a place to grow, is an extension of this. A virtual step until I can invite you to visit my garden and we can walk, talk and take photos together.

Why is it called Haven? I think it was a day of indifference and I was coming home from wherever and as I walked through the gate that opens onto our section I immediately felt better. I relaxed as I step into the garden. I see roses beginning to flower. A bumble bee zooms past. I notice a weed or two that needs taking care of. I go inside and change into my gardening clothes. Coming outside, I potter away for an hour or so. The dogs join me, fossicking away. Once my gardening is done, I take a few photos of something that caught my eye as I gardened. A moment like this is why I view my garden as my haven. It is a space which gives me peace when my mind is ruffled. It stimulates me creatively. It is nourishment. It is beautiful and messy all in one moment and I want to share what my beautiful messy gardens gives me through how I see it from behind my camera.

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Haven will be a once a month paid newsletter which will have a central theme connected to my garden and photography. It is a non technical photography newsletter which focuses on how to develop your eye, style and artistry. What does that mean? You don’t need a fancy camera to join in. It is about you and what you see and how you can capture that with meaning. When I first started taking photos with my digital camera I found the terminology connected to the technical side intimidating and confusing. Even now with a basic understanding I tend to play in order to get an image that I like. I’ve als learnt that the technical stuff is only one part of taking a photo and that the years of playing with my iphone before moving to digital were invaluable in developing my eye for taking a photo. That is why I want to side step the technical and embrace the creative. You will know when you are ready to move from iphone to digital and that will be your moment and not because someone said you should.

Within the Haven newsletter I will talk about different things I do and have learnt over the years as I have developed my photography practise. Things like the importance of daily photographs and how this can help develop your skill set. How to get curious about what you see and how to translate that into a photo that captures what you feel. Most importantly it is about sharing how I have learnt through my garden and my camera to take a moment for myself to connect with nature and how that connection just generally makes me feel like a better human being.

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I have long term plans for haven which include chat space outside the sphere of social media where we can share photos and talk. I want to create and share films that are prompts for creative moments in the garden. And of course I want to hold workshops and garden visits when we have that space established. Nothing would delight me more than to have you visit my garden and we take some photos together and we share my haven.

There is a cost involved and I liken it to us catching up in person once a month for a coffee and cake (or a gin) where we talk and share. Each monthly newsletter is $14.00 NZD per month or you can subscribe for a year $120.00 NZD. You save a few pennies ($48.00) if you subscribe for a year.

There is is an option to gift a subscription to someone who you think might enjoy this newsletter - it is a great gift idea.

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I think it is important to know what you are signing up for so I wanted to share with you the first issue which you can access for free here.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did in creating it and as I bustle away creating the second issue which will be out early January I feel this is the beginning of something simply beautiful and I hope you join me in my little haven.

Welcome to haven: a place to grow.

My garden is my haven - it is a space to breath, to feel centred and to create, whether by growing flowers or taking photos.

Haven is a monthly newsletter celebrating gardening, creativity in the form of photography and taking a moment. Whilst preparing what I wanted to create here, I wrote a note to myself that read:

“Petals unfurling; A bud; let it happen, don’t control just provide the foundations like you would a seed to grow- soil, water and sunlight”

That is what I want us to do here, nourish our creativity and ourselves.

Each newsletter will provide seasonal based creative nourishment which will be like adding water and sunlight to help grow your photography practice. When you see this newsletter appear in your email box, I want you to feel that you are entering your own personal haven and view receiving the email as you devoting time to your creative practice.

Before we start there are two things I want you to embrace:

1. “Daily Practice”- I say this in air quotes as I appreciate daily practice is not always possible but if you can connect with your garden and your camera on a regular basis you will find your confidence and skill set will grow. Also, and I think this perhaps more important, you will carve out some time during your day for you to connect with yourself.

2. Bad Photos - I believe that there is no such as a bad photo, just a chance to learn. Rein in your inner critic, and always look at your work and yourself with a kind heart.

This month’s theme is connection. Connection is the relationship we have between ourselves and the subject we are taking a picture of which I view as the start of taking a photo. There are various reasons why we connect with something, which we will explore in future newsletters.

Connection is such an intuitive response to something and we often don’t even notice we are doing it, which is why I want to take a moment to embrace that initial connection - that moment when our eye rests on something that speaks to us for whatever reason. When you connect to your subject you are expressing who you are or what you am feeling. It is a sweet feeling and in a way the very foundation of your photograph.

Often, once we have connected with our subject, our minds begin to race with a variety of questions. Our thoughts often turn to technical questions which result in us putting a huge emphasis on the importance of taking a good photo, and we end up losing that connection both to ourselves and to our subject. Instead of listening to the chatter of these thoughts, acknowledge the connection, sit with it for a moment. Let that influence how you take your photo, and look at taking a photo that expresses your connection rather than aiming for a technically great photo.

To help keep my mind focused on the connection, I often think of a word that summarises the connection I have made with my subject.

For example, this collection of three photos of a cosmos above are favourites of mine. I took them in January 2021 in the evening. What connected me to these flowers was the colour. I love the fuchsia pink and the white. It really pops. For me the word I would use to summarise my connection to this flower would be contrast. Using this word as my guide I want the sole focus to be on the flower colour and the background to be neutral with the flower as the centre of the image. Using a dark background pulls focus on the strong follow colour; highlighting the contrast I wanted to capture.

Once a month I will pick a favourite photo and talk a little about how I took the photo, exploring themes, thoughts, ideas and general musings that I had at the time.

Connection: My connection word for this photo would be peacefulness. There are moments in the garden that are just that - a quiet moment that is peaceful. I often find in the summer months I take my camera out into the garden in the evening and at a time when the day is done, and I am in a peaceful mood.

Wisdom: Wisdom is something we will explore more deeply in the next issue. Essentially it means what I bring to the photo. In 2021 when I took this photo, I tended to be drawn to taking photos of lone flowers, standing a bit apart from the rest. It was a reflection of how I felt at the time. I was working in a job where I felt isolated, and I see threads of those feelings in my work during this period. Despite this feeling I also see that I can still feel joy and beauty as I am drawn to the beautiful rose.

Story: Story is another topic in a forth coming issue. Story, as a prompt, asks: what is the narrative I am trying to capture here? In this case the story I am capturing is a favourite time of day in the summer. The evening is starting to fade and there are echoes of a hot day. I want to have an image that holds the fingers of summer light.

Practical : Golden Hour is a wonderful time of day to take photos. Essentially it is the hour after sunrise and the hour before sunset. In high summer it is a beautiful time to take photos as the light is softer and more gentle than the light you will encounter during the middle of the day.

Each month I will create a photo board based on a flower, offering inspiration in flower, form, and colour.

This month is it Achillea. As noted in a recently purchased gardening book , Achillea or yarrow is “ A ready-formed posy of flowers” 1 . Achillea, I have found is an easy to grow, bee friendly plant that comes in an extensive colour range. I have a few in the garden which are of various tones of pink. The top photo in this inspiration board highlights the many hues this plant offers. Colour range makes it a great plant to return to again and again over the season, and if you use it as a daily practise model it will offer you something new each day.

Another reason I find it such a great plant to photograph is you can capture it in many different ways. In this board you can see many moods captured simply by using focus. For example, the top photo focuses on the varied colours of the plant while the photos below focus on detail of the flower structure.

Achillea is very textural which makes it a great photo to use in double exposures. The bottom right photo is a double exposure made up of two photos, one photo is a clear shot from a distance. The second shot is a blurred which is a great use of a ‘Bad Photo’.

This section is called “what do you see” and is based on comments2 I have read on the importance of developing your eye for detail. One way to develop your eye for detail is to spend time focusing on just one element, looking for it through out your day. By focusing on one detail it helps you see things you might not notice while encouraging you to slow down.

Each month an observation point will be provided for you to look for. This month’s prompt is the colour pink. Often as the summer progresses colours become a bit faded as the garden reaches it peak and then slowly starts to fade, which will mean a variety of hues to hunt out. Observe how you notice it as the month progresses and see if the colour pink starts to appear in your photography practice.

Things to look forward to….

Next issue, the theme of wisdom, we admire the dahlia flower and embrace the colour apricot.

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