GARDEN PHOTOGRAPHY AS A FINE ART 
How Frances Benjamin Johnston Turned from the 
Brush to the Camera as a Means of Artistic Expression 
Some of Miss Johnston’s renderings of California gardens are reproduced on pages 105, iq6, iqj, 206, 20Q, 210 of this issue 
B ICTURING a garden by means of photography is an 
entirely different thing from the commonplace way of 
making a photograph in a garden. Indeed it is not 
given to every photographer, good as a technician 
though he or she may be, to portray through the medium of 
the lens and camera all or even any of the spirit and soul of any 
garden—its “feel,” as we might say. The expert may talk 
of atmosphere and design and what-not; but there still remains 
the dominating fact that a garden picture must be in fact a 
portrait of a living, vibrant thing, full of light and life as to its 
spirit, and of texture as to its material. To realize all these 
things, to capture and convey them through the medium of a 
photographic monochrome calls for peculiarly artistic qualifica¬ 
tions added to a really skillful photographic technique. Un¬ 
fortunately few gardeners are also good photographers and most 
photographers are apparently deficient in the perception of the 
living spirit of gardens, and where such a worker is found the 
gardeners are quick to appreciate the results. 
The fine art of gardening in present-day America is curiously 
associated with women’s activities, it is they indeed who are 
most active in making and maintaining the plaisance gardens. 
So also has the portrayal of gardens been best accomplished by 
women, both in paint and photography. But always has the 
really successful garden photographer come to that method of 
interpretation through an artistic understanding and the desire 
to give expressive portraits of the changing moods of. light 
and shade and color. Especially this last, but rendering it in 
monochrome. All this de- ' 
mands a keen sense of art, 
so the artist becomes the 
photographer. 
One striking figure in this 
field is Miss Frances Benja¬ 
min Johnston whose portrayal 
of gardens has led her out of 
all other fields of work and 
who has probably thus made 
permanent records of more 
beautiful gardens over the 
whole expanse of the United 
States than any other worker; 
and it is her photographs, in¬ 
deed, of California gardens 
that have so adequately 
adorned the pages of this 
and our former California is¬ 
sues. 
Miss Johnston became a 
photographer because she was 
an artist. As a magazine 
writer in Washington, D. C., 
she built a studio in her father’s garden where grew Roses in 
much variety. In fact Mr. Johnston’s was the second fin¬ 
est of the early Rose collections (about 1880) in that city; 
the first, of course, being that of the noted historian and 
rosarian, George Bancroft, a personal friend of the Johnstons. 
Miss Johnston was the first woman photographer in Washing¬ 
ton and struck an original type of work in making “home 
portraits” of people prominent in the social and political life of 
the Capitol. And from the house to the garden was a natural 
and easy transition. Here she occupied a field all her own 
and, specializing on garden pictures understanding^, she has 
travelled thousands of miles in collecting the material which 
has been crystallized with a unique collection of lantern slides 
to accompany her interpretative lectures. Miss Johnston is a 
purist in color, having an absolute color sense that is akin to 
the “true pitch” in music. Elence when the photographs are 
rendered into colored slides for the lantern, an uncanny truth¬ 
fulness is attained, but little short of the subtleties of the 
Lumiere color plate. 
Miss Johnston’s country-wide collection of garden photo¬ 
graphs is ample testimony of the energy and perseverance that 
are a part of her personality. What she wants she goes after, and 
what she goes after she gets if it is humanly possible, never bow¬ 
ing to difficulty or discouragement. She opened a New York 
studio a few years ago giving up her personal interest in it in 
1917, since which time she has literally indulged herself in giving 
herself freedom to make picture interpretations of gardens as 
she felt in the mood and in 
any centre of active garden 
interest that seemed appro¬ 
priate. Whether in the gar¬ 
dens of New England, of Long 
Island, in the Middle West, or 
along the Pacific Coast, Miss 
Johnston has found her inspi¬ 
ration, she has at the same 
time kept closely in touch with 
garden progress all over the 
country through the various 
garden clubs and her wide ac¬ 
quaintance with the gardens 
of individual members. The 
literature of flowers and gar¬ 
dens has appealed to Miss 
Johnston as giving a colorful 
background to her pictorial in¬ 
terpretations, and has made 
a rather unusual collection 
of garden books, now loaned 
to the Library of the Horti¬ 
cultural Society of New York. 
FRANCES BENJAMIN JOHNSTON 
Interpreter of gardens East and West 
205 
