Method​

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What Reading Gardens is

Working exclusively with analogue photography, my photographic practice is grounded in observation, patience and intentional image-making. Each exposure is made with the expectation that it will form part of the final body of work, reflecting a commitment to photographing moments as they are encountered rather than constructed afterwards.

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     Reading Gardens does not ask participants to explain gardens as they

     experience them. It first observes how expertise is expressed through attention,

     movement and engagement with place, before inviting reflection afterwards.​​

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How the work is undertaken

Each study follows a consistent observational approach.

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Participants are invited to move through a garden independently and without direction. I do not ask them to pose, repeat actions or explain what they are seeing during the visit. Instead, I photograph quietly as attention shifts naturally through movement, pause and engagement with the landscape.

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Only after the visit do I invite participants to reflect on their experience. The questions are developed from observations made during the day, allowing photographs and reflection to form complementary ways of understanding how expertise shapes the experience of place.

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Before the garden visit

Each collaboration begins with a period of discovery. Before meeting in the garden, I spend time with the invitee by phone, getting to know them, their relationship with gardens and what matters to them about the place we will visit. It is also an opportunity for them to discover more about Reading Gardens, ask questions and understand how the observational process works. This is not an interview or preparation for the visit, but the beginning of the collaboration: a shared space for curiosity, conversation and discovery before we enter the garden together.

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Expertise is often expressed before it is explained

By observing first and asking questions later, Reading Gardens seeks to understand not only what specialists know about gardens, but how that knowledge shapes the way they look, move and engage with landscape.

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How collaborations develop

Reading Gardens develops through sustained engagement with gardens and the people who care for them. Rather than seeking participants to fit predetermined categories, collaborations emerge through genuine curiosity, shared interest and an established understanding of place. The project is not built by collecting participants, but by allowing relationships to develop naturally through the landscapes themselves.​

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What taking part involves

A Reading Gardens study is deliberately unhurried and unobtrusive.

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Participants are invited to spend time in a garden as they normally would, moving through the landscape at their own pace. There is no preparation required, and no expectation to pose, perform or explain what you are seeing as we walk. I simply observe quietly as you experience the garden in your own way.

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I use just one camera, keep my distance and work in a very calm and unobtrusive way. The photographic presence is intentionally light-touch: I work with one camera and one lens, quietly and allow the garden, rather than the camera, to remain the focus.

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The observational visit typically takes around one hour.

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A week or two after the visit, I provide a short post-visit reflection based on what I observed during the study, together with a small number of questions for the participant to consider and answer.

 

These reflections form a complementary part of the study, alongside the photographs, helping to explore how professional knowledge shapes the experience of a garden.

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The intention is not to create a formal photographic shoot, but to give space for a person's knowledge and relationship with a garden to reveal itself naturally through attention, movement and engagement with place.​​​

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Participant Reflections

 

Following the inaugural Reading Gardens study at Rousham, I invited Advolly Richmond to reflect not only on the garden, but also on her experience of the observational methodology. Her responses offer insight into how the process is experienced from the participant's perspective.

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Did the absence of direction or interruption influence how you engaged with the garden?

 

Yes, it made it easier to just appreciate the space, atmosphere and spirit of the garden and take my own lead.

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Was there anything about the process that felt different from other photographic or interview experiences?

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I think the continual movement through the garden made a difference. Usually it is a question finding one or two spots and striking a pose. This felt like a series of tableaux which also caught the transition through the gardens.