Reading Gardens: What the Work Is Teaching Me

 

A hidden working record page of discoveries emerging through the development of Reading Gardens.

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This is a private working space. It is not intended to be a polished statement of the project, nor a finished explanation of the methodology. It is a place to preserve the thoughts, discoveries and realisations that emerge through the work itself.

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Some may eventually find their way into the public articulation of Reading Gardens. Others may remain here simply because they help me understand what the work is becoming.

The intention is not to rush to conclusions, but to notice what continues to feel true.​​​

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The Question Changed

I began Reading Gardens with a question: How does professional knowledge shape the experience of a garden?

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At Rousham, however, I discovered that I was also asking a question about myself as a photographer:

Could I work differently?

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I deliberately did not enter the garden with a preconceived visual outcome. I did not have a particular set of photographs in mind.

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I wanted to work openly. To feel the situation. To respond intuitively. To allow Advolly to move through Rousham in her own way and to discover what happened through observation rather than direction.

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The experiment was not whether I could make a good photograph.

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It was what I would direct my photographic attention towards when I stopped trying to anticipate what might happen.

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The Subject Has Changed

For many years, my photography involved recognising moments as they unfolded.

 

I looked for feeling, connection, gesture and moments that felt beautiful; not necessarily because they looked conventionally beautiful, but because something about them touched me.

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Reading Gardens has brought that instinct into a different context.

The subject has changed, but the instinct to recognise the fleeting moment has not.

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Or perhaps more simply:

The way of seeing remained. The question changed.

Reading Gardens did not teach me how to observe.

It redirected an existing way of seeing towards a new question.​​​

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The Recognition of the Fleeting Moment

One of the things I have come to understand more clearly is how fundamental the recognition of the fleeting moment has always been to my photography.

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A moment happens. I notice it. I feel something in it. I recognise that it feels worth preserving. And I photograph it: I see it. I feel it. I recognise it. And I photograph it.

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Recognition comes before explanation. I do not necessarily need to understand why a moment matters before responding to it. Sometimes I simply know that it does.​​

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Feels Worth Preserving

The phrase “feels worth preserving” has become increasingly important to me. It is not simply about producing a beautiful photograph.

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Something may feel worth preserving because of a connection, a gesture, a feeling, a moment of attention, or something I cannot yet articulate.

The photograph begins with that recognition.

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This may be one of the deepest continuities between my earlier photographic practice and Reading Gardens.

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The photograph is not simply a record of what was there. It is a record of something I recognised as significant enough to preserve.​

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Intention Without Prescription

Before Rousham, I had ideas about what I might observe.

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I had thought about Advolly's relationship with history, structures, movement, transitions, detail and the way she might engage with the garden.

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But these were not a predetermined list of photographs.

They were thoughts intended to make me attentive, not instructions telling me what to photograph.

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I entered Rousham with intention, but without prescription.

That distinction now feels important to Reading Gardens.

The work needs enough intention to give it purpose, but enough openness to allow something unexpected to emerge.​

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I Wasn't Watching Where Advolly Was Going

At Rousham, I gradually realised that I was not really watching where Advolly was going.

I was watching for where her attention went.

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Rousham itself provides an extraordinary spatial framework. Its sequence of spaces, transitions, views, structures and features creates possibilities for movement.

But I could not know exactly when Advolly would turn, pause, cross the lawn, change her stance or hold her gaze.

That was what I was watching for.

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I wasn't watching where she was going. I was watching for where her attention went.

 

This became particularly clear in the moment when Advolly's attention settled towards the Lion Attacking a Horse.

The sculpture itself was not what touched me most.

It was Advolly's connection with what she was seeing.

The subject was the connection.​

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The Photograph Came From Watching

I was intensely focused on Advolly. I watched for a change in her stance. A turn of the head. A slight shift in direction. A pause. A moment when her gaze seemed to settle.​​​​​​

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​I was not trying to interpret what she was thinking. I was watching. And from that watching, the photograph emerged. The photograph came from watching.

 

I was not photographing what Advolly knew.

I was photographing visible signs of engagement — the moments in which her attention appeared to settle into relationship with the garden. In that sense, I felt I was photographing her way of seeing.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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Learning to Trust the Moment

Before Reading Rousham, I hadn't fully recognised how much I expected to see my subject's face, or at least their head and shoulders turning towards whatever had caught their attention, in order to photograph their act of observation.

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Working with Advolly began to change that.

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I learnt to trust myself to recognise a moment as it unfolded: when her attention settled, when she slowed, paused, changed direction or walked away from me to explore something further. I couldn't predict these moments, and I didn't want to interrupt them by asking her to hold a position, turn back or repeat an action.

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My wedding photography had already taught me to recognise fleeting moments, but weddings follow a familiar rhythm, with chapters that repeat from one wedding to another. At Rousham, I had to trust that instinct in a less predictable environment.

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I began to understand that I didn't need to be standing in the ideal position, or see my subject's face, for a moment to be worth photographing. The subject's experience takes precedence over my preferred photographic viewpoint.

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The moment doesn't need to accommodate me. I need to learn to recognise it wherever I happen to be standing.

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The Subject Was the Connection

The garden feature was sometimes the stimulus, but it was not necessarily the subject of the photograph.

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What interested me was the relationship between Advolly and what she was seeing.

The photograph could not tell me what she was thinking. Nor could it prove why she had paused.

But it could preserve the moment that made me curious.

 

This led to an important realisation:

You don't photograph the answer. You photograph the moment that makes you want to ask the question.

And perhaps that is also what the photograph can offer the audience.

It can become the beginning of their own question rather than the conclusion.​​

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​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​The Act of Looking Is Already in the Frame

Looking again at the photograph of Advolly with Antinous, I realised that the photograph does not illustrate her interpretation retrospectively.

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The act of looking is already there.

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I observed her attention, recognised the moment and photographed it. I did not ask her to look at the sculpture, position herself or recreate what I had seen.

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Something of the process of reading the garden had become visible in the frame.

This is increasingly looking like one of the defining qualities of Reading Gardens.​

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The Photograph Can Leave Something Unresolved

I have become increasingly comfortable with the idea that a photograph does not have to explain everything.

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A photograph may show attention without explaining it. It may show a pause without telling us what was being considered. It may reveal a relationship without defining it. That unresolved quality can create curiosity.

 

The viewer may not know exactly what Advolly was thinking. They may simply see that something had caught her attention. And that may be enough to make them look more closely themselves.​

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The Questions Came Afterwards

One of the most important discoveries from Rousham was that I did not need to formulate questions while I was photographing.

 

During the visit, I was immersed in the experience. I was observing. Responding. Photographing.

 

The questions came afterwards. They emerged from what I had noticed, what I remembered and what the photographs prompted me to reconsider. 

 

This suggests something fundamental about the method:

The method itself generated the questions.

 

The sequence was not:

question → answer → photograph

 

It was closer to:

immerse → observe → respond → photograph → reflect → question → invite reflection

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The photograph became part of the inquiry rather than the conclusion of it.

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Relinquishing Control

I relinquished control over what would happen.

 

I did not relinquish photographic judgement. Advolly's movement was hers. Her attention was hers.

 

I could not, and did not want to determine what would happen next. But I remained fully responsible for recognising and capturing what did happen. This distinction feels important.

 

I relinquished control over what would happen, but not my ability to recognise and capture what happened. The freedom was not the absence of photographic intention. It was freedom from manufacturing the moment.​​

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Don't Preempt

One of the strongest inner instructions during the session became:

Stay with Advolly. Do not preempt. Wait. Trust what is happening.

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Not preempting did not mean becoming passive. It meant remaining sufficiently attentive to recognise the moment when it arrived. I did not need to know what would happen next. I needed to be present enough to notice it. The smallest shift could become significant.

Watch → notice → respond → photograph.

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Trusting the Next Moment

I also realised that I could allow a moment to pass. I could see something that might have made a photograph, but decide that it did not feel strong enough to warrant preserving.

 

I did not feel anxious about missing it. I trusted my instinct. I trusted my experience. And I trusted that another opportunity would come.

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Not every fleeting moment deserves to be immortalised. The decision not to photograph can be as deliberate as the decision to photograph. The value of a photograph begins before the shutter is released. It begins with attention.​​

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What Analogue Film Has Taught Me

Analogue film has reinforced this way of working.

 

It slows the photographer down. It makes the photographer selective. It encourages care, concentration and deliberation. Every exposure matters.

 

There is no comfort in photographing continuously in the hope that something will eventually be there.

One has to look. Wait. Recognise. Decide. Trust.

 

That discipline has become deeply embedded in the way I photograph. It has taught me that I can let a moment pass when it does not feel worth preserving. And that is not failure. It is judgement.​

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Trusting the Craft

I have realised that the peace I experienced at Rousham was not because I was uncertain about whether I could make the photographs.

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The craft was already deeply embodied. I could focus, compose and respond instinctively. The experiment was about where I directed that competence.

 

By trusting the craft, I did not need to think constantly about making a photograph. I could give my attention to the encounter itself. I could trust the craft enough to give myself fully to the encounter. This may be one of the reasons the experience felt so open, honest and true.

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The Quietness of the Process

There was a quietness to the experience.

 

Not simply an absence of conversation, but a quietness of intention. I did not need to decide what should happen next. I did not need to impose direction. I could remain present, watch and respond.

 

That quietness allowed me to become deeply attuned to what was happening. I felt immersed. Connected. At peace. Almost at one with the moment.

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The experience felt open and honest because I was not trying to make it into something it was not.

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Giving One Another Space

At Rousham, it felt as though Advolly and I were able to immerse ourselves in our separate roles.

 

Advolly was immersed in Rousham. I was immersed in observing and photographing. Neither of us needed to interfere with the other's experience. There was space for each of us to be where we needed to be.

 

I do not need to define that relationship more precisely than that. The important observation is simply that the process required little interaction.

 

Sometimes giving space is what allows observation to become possible.​

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The Emerging Method

What happened at Rousham is beginning to suggest a broader methodological principle for Reading Gardens.

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The work is not about directing an expert towards predetermined moments. It is about creating the conditions in which their way of engaging with a garden can unfold naturally.

 

The photographer observes. The participant experiences. The garden provides the environment. Attention provides the moments. Photography records what becomes visible. Reflection afterwards adds another layer.

 

The different layers do not replace one another. They complement one another.

 

Observation cannot tell me everything. Participant reflection cannot tell me everything. Together, they allow a richer understanding of how professional knowledge may become visible through attention, movement and engagement with place.

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What Reading Gardens May Be Teaching Me

Reading Gardens may therefore be less about discovering a completely new way of photographing and more about applying an established photographic instinct to a new intellectual question.

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I have always been interested in moments that feel worth preserving.

I have always looked for feeling, connection and fleeting shifts in human experience.

What has changed is the subject of that attention.

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I am now asking what professional knowledge might reveal about the way someone experiences a garden.

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The camera remains the medium.

Observation has become the method.

The question has become the subject.

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And the photograph may become the bridge between what I observe and what I, and eventually the audience, begin to ask.

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What I Do Not Yet Know

I don't yet know exactly where Reading Gardens will lead, and I don't need to know.

The project discloses new and exciting discoveries.

 

Some may prove fundamental. Some may change. Some may disappear altogether. The work itself should be allowed to determine what survives.

 

For now, the important thing is to keep observing. Keep making. Keep reflecting. And notice what continues to feel true.​

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A Thought to Return To

Photography is the medium.
Observation is the method.
Professional knowledge is the subject.
Potentially, a new way of seeing gardens.

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For now, that is enough.