Kew Gardens - International Garden Photographer of the Year

I visited Kew Gardens to view the exhibition last week on a day of rather unsettled weather. The photographs are presented as weatherproof panels arranged on curving screens outside in a small area of the gardens. Whilst the panels are impervious to the rain, a covering of rain drops on the plastic surface does obscure some of the details and textures.

As well as an overall winner, there are category prizes for "Plant portraits", "Garden views", "Wildlife in the Garden", "People in the Garden", "The Edible Garden" and "Trees". There are also prizes for young photographers.

In the Plant Portraits, there were two photographs that seemed interesting in terms of their composition:

Lotus by Nikki de Gruchi: The viewpoint is directly above a lotus pond looking down. The main visual element in the photograph is a large lotus leaf with two smaller leaves overlapping it on two sides. The leaves are in the right hand side of a horizontal frame and the left had side and background around the leaves are almost totally black. The unsymmetrical position in the frame adds vitality and contrast to a highly symmetrical subject.

Polytrichum Mounds by Andy Latham: The dome shaped mounds of moss stand out due to backlighting. In this photograph, a random array of shapes are made to look ordered by symmetrically placing a small group of the mounds in the foreground and a larger group in the middle ground of the frame. There are narrow sinuous tree trunks mainly in the background with just one in the foreground. I assume that the photographer would have needed to use a graduated neutral density filter or digital technique to keep an equilibrium between the bright background and darker foreground.

In the Garden Views section, the three photographs by Marianne Marjerus really stood out for me.

"A moment captured" was overall winner for the year. A layered landscape with sunlight streaming diagonally into the left side of the frame, with a group of plants leaning diagonally to the right in the right centre of the frame.

"Stipa gigantica....." is another photograph with absolutely beautiful lighting. Sunlight is catching some golden fronds of one plant which appear as diagonal waves against a dark background. The vertical trunks of light coloured bark form appear like columns across the frame in muted tones.

"Morning light" is a photograph of flower bed in with blooms in blue to pink tones. The elements of the composition are quite subtle and it took a number of revisits to this picture before I began to see some order in the complexity. There is a distinctive group of blue flowers in the right foreground which form a triangular shape, with a solitary blue flower of the same type placed at the far left of the frame. In between a broad band of pink/purple flowers starts in the foreground and spreads back to the centre before sweeping across to the left in front of some tree trunks.

The winning photograph in the People in the Garden section is an example of using square shapes in composition. The photograph entitled "Tai Chi" by Victor Korchenko was taken from a high viewpoint looking down at a square terrace on which a man is in a twisting posture. There is a dark tree trunk in the foreground on the left had side of the square and a narrow band of leaves on the left foreground which reveal the terrace and the figure below. The L-shape of light coloured tiles around the terrace dominate the otherwise low key scene. The figure is actually quite central in the frame, but the other off centre elements create a balanced and lively composition.