READING GARDENS
by GINA DOVER-JAQUES
The Who & Biography
For many years I was a fine art wedding photographer, photographing a select number of celebrations each year in Tuscany, Italy. Working with analogue film, my practice was built on patience, observation and intentional image-making. I learned to make each exposure count, carefully considering what I framed in-camera so that the photograph itself was the finished image.
Over the past several years, that same photographic approach has found a new focus in gardens. Rather than changing my way of seeing, I began asking a different question: how does professional expertise shape the experience of landscape? That question became Reading Gardens.
Reading Gardens grew from that question. It brings together the way I have always worked as a photographer, observing rather than orchestrating, looking for moments, feeling and connection as they naturally unfold, with a new curiosity about how professional knowledge influences the way we experience gardens and other green spaces.
The camera remains my medium. Observation is my method. The question is what professional knowledge reveals about the way we see, experience and connect with landscape.