Rangefinder Magazine
June 2005

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The Garden of Freeman Patterson by Lou Jacobs Jr.

Briefly described, Freeman Patterson is an award-winning nature photographer and a veteran gardener. In his book The Garden (2003, Firefly Books, Ltd.) his passion for photography comes together with a creative visual and verbal journal of his unique and stunning gardens. Delightful photographs of trees, fields and a grand variety of wild garden flowers illustrate Freeman’s keen observations, musings and nostalgic memories. The Garden is wise, evocative, sensitive, spiritual and glowing in its photographic diversity.

Freeman’s impression of four little girls playing in his garden became a photographic fantasy featuring red geraniums.

The Canadian author/photographer has written 11 books including Photography and the Art of Seeing, Photography of Natural Things and Photography for the Joy of It. He began by sending photographs and articles on spec to an assortment of magazines. After 20 rejections, he scored. He recalls, “In 1965 the National Film Board of Canada saw one of my photos in an American magazine and hunted me down.” Numerous assignments for their Still Photography Division followed.

Before all that, however, he earned a BA degree in philosophy from Acadia University and a master’s degree in divinity from Union Seminary (Columbia University in New York). During his years at Columbia, he studied photography and visual design privately with Dr. Helen Manzer. When I asked about his switch to photography, he said, “It was not a sudden attraction, but really my first opportunity. I grew up on a farm where ‘the arts’ were the last thing of interest, certainly to my father. It was several years before I realized how strong my visual interests were. I felt compelled to follow them.”

In the introduction to The Garden we learn more about Freeman and his unique (a word I do not use lightly) garden setting. He describes the area: “Shamper’s Bluff is a high, forested, rocky peninsula that juts into Belleisle Bay in New Brunswick’s lower St. John River Valley.” On the map, New Brunswick is mostly east of Maine. Freeman continues, “Perhaps 500 acres in size, about half of the Bluff is now a private ecological reserve belonging to the Nature Conservancy of Canada. This reserve is my home: I donated most of the land in return for life tenancy. [The Bluff’s] ecological zones or natural habitats are home for 253 species of plants, flocks of migratory and non-migratory birds, and mammals such as hares, foxes, field mice, coyotes, flying squirrels, deer and an occasional moose or bear.”

	The colors of evening clouds are far more transient than those of the flowers they illuminate,” Freeman writes in The Garden.

Shamper’s Bluff has an ancient heritage of ecological diversity. “In a circle of about 25 acres around my house,” Freeman explains, “I have the privilege of engaging with the land and the many plant and animal species.” He can also explore a nearby swamp where very old ferns thrive, and he sits on a special bench to observe “the waving sea of green.”

Adjacent to his house, barn and guest cottage, Freeman can wander an area of flowerbeds, annual and perennial plants, and paths through wild rhododendron and blueberry bushes. He describes the mélange of nature’s plant décor, but adds, “This is not a Garden of Eden where life is carefree.” Instead it’s the “real world” of his objective senses. His gardens offer a sense of stillness and satisfaction that he experiences via hard work, as well as through seeking and taking pictures.

The book is sectioned into seasonal images and text, beginning with spring. There are 200 sharp or artistically blurred, atmospheric and otherwise enchanting color photographs in The Garden. Freeman also does poetic wonders with close-ups of flowers and wet spider webs.

“The importance of beauty to our lives,” writes Freeman, “requires no explanation.”

He comments, “There’s a reason for every composition, but most of the time the reason isn’t a conscious one.” He says certain arrangements simply “feel right.” Analysis of a visual arrangement won’t entirely explain why he chose a particular scene, Freeman avers. The real reason we shoot pictures lies “deep within the creator—somewhere in the unconscious… We seldom do the introspection necessary to discover where we are operating from,” he declares.

In one photo, beds of yellow daffodils frame the foreground of a barn portrait. In analyzing the picture, Freeman decides that while he likes the barn, he likes the daffodils better. “They actually ‘show up’ the barn in this composition,” he says, deciding it was his way of acknowledging that his creations are rarely a match for those of nature.

“My experience tells me that trying to match man-made or natural creations is an equally rugged challenge.” The book’s captions are imbedded in nearby, short, double-spaced essays. It is clear that Freeman enjoys his daily luxury (my word) of observing the areas and vistas of his widespread gardens. Changes in season and light happen by themselves, he reflects, “but only I can give myself the time to enjoy it.” It is evident that he photographed the small views, trees, and alluring plant and flower close-ups with love and grace. Some striking images in the book appeal to me as abstract beauties. One of loosestrife (an exotic plant) is streaks of lavender and green that sooth the senses.

Here is an assortment of Freeman Patterson’s words from The Garden: “In spring there is mist over the land, and tiny greens peek through half-rotted maple and aspen leaves… [A 10-minute walk to his mail box becomes] a succession of highlights.

“And I garden. I can’t help it. My whole being longs to be engaged in the birthing process. This is not a hobby, but an essential aspect of who I am. For me, not to garden would be saying ‘No’ to life itself.”
About composition: “I’m also concerned, often quite unconsciously, with the inner me, and the resulting photograph is a description of my meeting with the subject matter. The camera always looks both ways.” That last short sentence can really make you think.

	The importance of beauty to our lives, writes Freeman, requires no explanation.

“I have more fun now than I used to, experimenting with ideas. Both botanical and visual.”

About a delicate interplay of thin grasses in water: “I enjoy frequent visits to wet places—bogs filled with ferns and mosses… Some very attractive wet places are temporary, such as this spring pool formed by a depression in a meadow… Was I capturing dream symbols when I made this photograph, or was my response a purely visual one? Or both?

“When my sister and I were very young and heard our mother talking about rhododendron, we both thought she was saying ‘road to Dendron,’ an exotic place to which we had never traveled… The large field below my house has huge patches of wild rhododendron… [and] my favorite times to wander along the road to Dendron are misty mornings and sunny evenings…

“This enormous bilberry tree stands about 30 feet from my front door. When May rolls around I can never refrain from making more photographs of it, all dressed up and dancing. Come October… I lose my restraint all over again.

“Lupins have been growing here for a long time. They escaped from the gardens of early settlers, and have become so abundant… that many people think of them as the unofficial floral emblem of Canada’s three Maritime provinces.

“The colors of evening clouds are far more transient than those of the flowers they illuminate… so I can sit quietly and appreciate the festival of light. And then comes the night. Here at Shamper’s Bluff it still is possible to listen to silence.”

In early July, Freeman explains, the vegetation at Shamper’s Bluff “becomes lush—taller and thicker and more abundant.” He describes a lovely assemblage of “tall orange lilies [that] were originally wild native plants… I put them together with the purple delphiniums and other flowers… very laid back behavior.”

Reading and roaming through The Garden is a treat. It is not difficult to share the cycles of nature that surround Freeman, and his refreshing approach reveals his affinity for all that grows on earth. Read and follow the seasons, but you probably can’t resist looking at his often-poetic photographs first.
You can contact Freeman Patterson at 3487 Route 845, Long Reach, New Brunswick, Canada, E5S 1X4; freeman@freeman patterson.com; or www.freemanpatterson.com/.

Lou Jacobs Jr. is the author of 28 how-to photography books, the latest of which is Studio Lighting (Amherst Media). He has taught at UCLA and Brooks, and his photographs and stories have been published in numerous magazines. He is a longtime member of ASMP and enjoys shooting stock during his travels in the U.S. and abroad, which is leased through several agencies.