The winter garden

This silver gelatin print of The Winter Garden shows a pathway lined with benches beneath an awning of hanging vegetation. What gets me about this print is how Phillipse and Lees manage to create this sense of depth with varying tones, as if they were laying washes of paint, one after another. The benches are sharply captured, and the composition is carefully cropped, almost like a painting. The shadows cast by the hanging plants and the light filtering through creates a dance of light and dark that really pulls me in. The photograph has the kind of soft blur you find in Symbolist painting, and in the upper right corner, the edge of the frame is visible, which gives the image a sense of honesty. To me, this print is a reminder that all art is a conversation, and photography can have just as much to say as painting, maybe that is why, for me, they are never really that different.