Hoverfly on a Poppy by Mark Bolton.
Zoe Deleuil discovered a quiet oasis in the centre of the bustling capital at the Geffrye Museum.
Most people are familiar with the stately elegance of a formal public garden or park; immaculate lawns, weed free borders and two-tone, uniform planting. But what about the garden you remember from childhood? Or the tiny, overgrown one you stare at from your bedroom window, or the one you catch a glimpse of through the gap in a wooden fence and wonder who lives there?
Private Places at the Geffrye Museum until August 29 2005 is about these gardens: the ones you wouldn’t normally know existed, especially in urban areas where green spaces are often tucked away from view.
Tunnel by Jonathan Buckley.
The Garden Photographer’s Association holds the exhibition annually and photographs are selected and awarded prizes by a panel of independent judges.
The winning shot, by Jeff Eden, is of an old, ornate window where the view out is blocked by green leaves. "Walking through a building due for demolition, I noticed the old window covered in plant growth. I was drawn to this idea of nature taking over human-made structures," he writes.
It’s an intriguing, yet quite simple image. You wonder who or what could be outside the window.
A-Mazing by Clive Nichols.
At other times it’s the plants that have caught the photographer’s eye. Richard Freestone has captured four browning poppy seed heads in mid-winter. The contrast of a clean white background and their skeletal form works beautifully.
In Tarifa, Spain, Jacqui Hurst has photographed a few daffodils in an old olive oil tin on a balcony. These are a great example of how, for people without back gardens, a few plants to look after can give the essence of a garden, without much time or space required.
There’s a fantastic shot by Mimi Winter of the Asian Women’s Allotment Society in east London. Under the vast chilly-looking greenhouse, rows of deep green leaves are flourishing in mid-winter. Allotments in Berlin and Amsterdam have been captured by Jane Sebire: a reminder that for many city-dwellers, belonging to a community is one of the best things about gardening.
And it's not just people who seek privacy in gardens. They are an important haven for wildlife in built-up urban areas too. There’s a photo of a snail tucked into a red dahlia by Dianna Jazwinski and another of a fox sleeping on a lawn in the early morning sunshine.
Catnap by Estelle Cuthbert.
Though Private Places is a small one-room exhibition, the Geffrye Museum is worth a visit for other reasons, too. There’s a light, airy café and you can ‘walk through time’ by wandering past many domestic interiors. From a 17th century oak panelled drawing room to the cloying memorabilia of Victorian days and a late 20th century warehouse conversion, you can see (or remember) how interior design has changed through the centuries.
And if you’re feeling inspired, you could even wander out to their herb garden and take a few shots to enter in next year’s competition.
