Two recent plant art photographic books worth contemplating while laying in a grassland meadow or alternatively standing in the Tate Modern bookshop.
Scott McFarland, Snow, Shacks, Streets, Shrubs
McFarland is a wonderful photographer. His extensive focus on gardens and plants works in his favour here too. This collection of previous years’ work has a good selection of such subject matter, while also showing his move to more urban contexts. He does utilise manipulation, multiple exposure and montages to bring a heightened realism to his scenes, but mostly what he does is create beautiful, romantic images of places that are not always obviously beautiful or romantic. As well as the book, he currently has exhibitions running at the Regen Project gallery in LA and the Art Gallery of Ontario.
Scott McFarland, View of Vale of Health, Looking Towards Hampstead, 2007
Bernard Fuchs, Woodland
Trees, landscapes and more trees in this Fuchs’ most recent publication and work. Taken in his native Austria near Linz over a period of three years, the book comprises 50 landscape photographs on full-page plates. They form impressive often stark visions: evoking comforting feelings of interconnectedness, coupled with uncomfortable feelings of aloneness, that arise when reflecting upon our place in the natural world.
