A fascinating look at Foliage
Foliage is an elegant oversized coffee table book featuring the images of master photographer Harold Feinstein.
These images will change how you look at your garden
If you are one of those gardeners who have yet to embrace the beauty of foliage, Harold Feinstein will change your mind in a hurry.
Feinstein is the master behind the meticulously composed images in the beautifully photographed coffee table book simply entitled FOLIAGE.
The simplicity of the title reflects the same approach Feinstein takes in this breathtaking, 135-page oversized book published back in 2001. Don’t let the age of the book put you off. These digital images are of the utmost quality, printed beautifully and presented in a contemporary, minimalistic approach that lets readers zero in on what is really important.
For woodland gardeners who depend on foliage for most of the growing season, these images prove that we no longer have to be jealous of our cottage gardener friends who like to show off their abundance of colourful and showy flowers.
The next time “one of those people” try to impress you with their fancy flowers, pull this book out and show them what they are missing. If that’s just not your style, leaf through the pages at least once a month in the growing season to remind you why you love woodland gardens.
“With my photographs, I want to do for horticulture what Audubon did for birds and animals.”
Although Foliage is primarily a book of photography, contributing authors Sydney Eddison and Alexandra Anderson-Spivy add a touch of their own with elegant essays on “Looking Beyond the Obvious” and “The Architecture of Nature Enhanced.” Greg Piotrowski adds informative botanical notes to fill out the book.
The hardcover book is available at Amazon book sellers used for just a few dollars here, or at independent booksellers in the United States, Canada and elsewhere here.
It’s a quick read. You can get through the prose with a couple of afternoon teas or morning coffees, but you’ll want to return to it regularly to view the gorgeous images all taken with stark black backgrounds.
Of course, some of the most striking images in the book are ferns – always beautiful for their architectural qualities – but ornamental grasses like Switch grass and Maiden grass have never looked so good. Fruits and vegetables are included along with a full-spread image of gourds.
Hardy geranium foliage, yellow spurge, and a simple Sycamore Maple leaf are just a few of the outstanding images woodland gardeners might appreciate most.
For more on using foliage in the garden, be sure to read my earlier post: The importance of foliage in a woodland or shade garden.
Linden leaves and acorns is a combination that will take you back to a walk through the garden in fall. The simple but lovey image of Maple samaras might even help gardeners get over the dread of all the little maple trees sprouting up through the leaves in spring.
In her opening essay, Alexandra Anderson-Spivy writes: Feinstein excels at making the humblest, most familiar vegetable or weed provoke our astonishment and scrutiny. His wonder at the world remains undimmed. He says, ‘With my photographs, I want to do for horticulture what Audubon did for birds and animals.’ The images in Foliage, perhaps even more than the photographer’s flowers, invite his viewers to ponder the infinite architectural variety of nature. He examines everything from ferns and grasses to grapes and Hosta leaves, from dissected artichokes and tomatoes to a tapestry of maple seeds, every shape isolated against deep black backgrounds. These images teach us again the the gorgeous diversity of nature is an inexhaustible subject.”
There are separate essays on grasses and ferns, edibles, The Essence of Green, The Beneficial Green Plant, Leaf coloration, Cactus and succulents and Seeds of change.
This is not a gardening book. Readers will not learn how to grow, nurture or fertilize a plant, but it will inspire you to look at foliage in a new way and to use it boldly in our gardens.
One final note – I can’t think of a more beautiful book to place on your coffee table for inspiration and to remember why you garden in the shade of a tree.
The hardcover book is available at Amazon book sellers used for just a few dollars here, or at independent booksellers in the United States, Canada and elsewhere here.
• If you are interested in purchasing the book, it is published by Bullfinch Press / Little, Brown and Company Boston • New York • London.
