Photography

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Color in Her Garden, and Toolbox

In the Garden Club of America’s fall Focus contest, “The Artist’s Toolbox,” the “class” was Color and the description was “A portrait of a botanical subject taken at close range. The subject need not mostly fill the frame, but the subject should be the dominant element in the composition. Color should be compelling. Plant material is required. The first-place winner was this close-up of a hellebore by Dorrie Bernstein, horticulture co-chair of our club. The judges wrote: “Strong composition effectively utilizes light to emphasize the colors, shapes, and forms of the flower’s stamen set against the diffused backlit petals.” GCA members may flip through 88 pages of winners from all around the country here.

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Two Seasons in One

The photography class in the 2023 Zone III Meeting in Bedford was called “Watershed,” and the challenge was “a color image featuring water using creative techniques.” That is, “the use of manipulation or alteration in any stage of the photographic process to achieve an effect that the original subject is no longer discernible or reflective of reality.” Ellen Shapiro experimented with two photographs she took of Canada Goose Pond in Irvington, which is surrounded by her house and 11 others. The background is the pond in late autumn. With colors manipulated and the plant material silhouetted, it was overlayed with a semi-transparent image of a family of geese on the pond in spring. The statement of intent was: “In autumn, when the foliage is golden, geese are already dreaming about gliding across the pond with the goslings to be born in the spring.” This image won First Place and the Photography Creativity Award.

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She Captured the Moment—in Vietnam

GCI Photo Committee member Edna Kornberg entered this image in the Garden Club of America national photo contest entitled “What (and Where) in the World!!” This third-place winner was published in the March 2020 issue of GCA’s Focus magazine. The editors wrote: “What a feast for the eyes to see the winners! You, our readers, cast the votes to choose your favorites among the gorgeous images inspired by the work of the GCA Visiting Gardens Committee. They are stunning photographs and represent all the corners of the globe traversed by GCA.” Edna’s photo was shot in Vietnam, where these youngsters care for (and carry on their backs) their younger siblings.

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She Seized the Day

GCI Photo Chair Harriet Kelly entered this photo in “Seas the Day” and the class was “Summer Play.” It won a first-place award. “This is my grandson Will playing in the surf in Ocean City, New Jersey,” says Harriet. “What’s interesting about this photo is that I’d first entered it in another show in B/W. The class was ‘Reflections.’ It won a second. I reprinted it in color to enter ‘Seas the Day.’ It used to be that if a photo had not won a first prize in a GCA Flower Show, you could reprint it and enter it again. Keep in mind that the new rule is that no photo that has been entered in any show cannot be shown again, even if it didn’t win anything.”

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Natural Beauty

6-20-12 The flower show was called “On Parade” sponsored by the Little Garden Club of Columbus, Ohio. The class was “Natural Beauty in a Public Garden.” And the Honorable Mention went to Harriet Kelly for her photograph of Rocky Hills in Mt. Kisco, NY. “Shot with my trusty Canon Power Shot,” says Harriet.

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Blooming Blossoms!

6-17-12 Congratulations to Photo Chair Harriet Kelly on her Honorable Mention for her photograph of color blossoms at the photography show at the Zone meeting hosted by the Philipstown Garden Club. The theme was “Blooming Blossoms,” and the shot, taken in late April, is of golden delicious apple trees at Wilkens Farms in Yorktown Heights.

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Old Westbury Takes Texas, too.

6-11-12 Deb Flock took this shot in Old Westbury Gardens on the GCI field trip in June, 2011. It received an Honorable Mention in the “Unlocking the Witte” show hosted by the Alamo Heights-Terrell Hills Garden Club, Zone IX (Texas) in the “Make an Entrance” class. The Witte is San Antonio’s museum of South Texas history, culture and natural science.

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Taconic Takes Texas

3-25-12: Winners were announced in the “Bounties of Black Gold” GCA flower show sponsored by the Magnolia Garden Club of Beaumont, Texas. GCI photo chair Harriet Kelly took Second Place in “Class 1 – Iron Sculpture” with this black-and-white image of the Croton Reservoir Bridge on the Taconic Parkway.“I had 10 seconds to take the shot before the traffic came up behind me,” says Harriet, who took the photo with her Canon Power Shot — through the windshield!

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Cold Mountain

Southern Literature was the theme of the upcoming photography competition displayed at GCA’s 2012 Annual Meeting in Savannah, GA. Harriet Kelly’s landscape was selected as our club’s entry.

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A Rose Is a Rose

All GCA garden clubs in New York entered photographs in the “New York State of Mind” competition to choose the winning shots to be displayed at 24 x 36″ at the next GCA annual meeting. Deborah Flock’s evocative shot of a rose, taken at Lyndhurst on a rainy day in mid-September with a Canon Digital Rebel XT camera and a Tamron 28-300mm lens, was chosen as GCI’s entry. It received an Honorable Mention!

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Two GCI Winners in “Namaste” Show

Ellen Shapiro’s photo taken after a January storm in Isla Mujeres, Mexico, won “Best in Show” at the September, 2o11, “Namaste” flower show sponsored by the Little Garden Club of Rye. The category was called “The Road Less Traveled.” It was shot with a Leica D-Lux 3 digital camera.

Renee Shamosh garnered an Honorable Mention at for her “Reflections” shot of a lily pond taken with a Canon Powershot during the Shirley Meneice Horticulture Conference last October at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, Birmingham, Alabama.

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A Double Winner at the Lenox “Then and Now” Show

The theme was “Looking into the Future: a Plant Close-Up.” and GCI member Ellen Shapiro received a Red Ribbon (Second Award) for her photo of a portulacaria, which was shot at the 2010 GCA Annual Meeting flower show in New Brunswick, NJ. This succulent was a double winner: in a horticulture class and then a photography class. The “Then and Now” flower show was held in Lenox, MA, on September 16.

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GCI Member’s Photo Honored in Zone Show

In the “Locally Grown” class of the photography division of Milbrook Garden Club’s “Country Life” Zone III flower show, GCI member Doreen Ruff garnered an Honorable Mention for her evocative portrait of a white Anemone x hybrida ‘Elegans.’ It was shot in Dori’s back yard in a late August afternoon with a Canon Powershot point-and-shoot camera. This was Dori’s first photo entry. Congratulations!

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“Grow and Tell” — Garden and Landscape Photography

GCI Photography Committee Chair Harriet Kelly has started a feature at our regular business meetings, “Grow and Tell,” at which members post photographs of their own gardens—or of plants, gardens and landscapes that intrigue them.

She writes of one of her winning photos, below: “This is the garden at Underscar in England’s Lake District, where we have a timeshare, won the blue ribbon at the Zone III meeting in 2008. The class was called ‘A Garden Gatescape.’ The judges’ comment was: ‘Pleasing and inviting composition.’”