SEASONS OF CHANGE, Photography Above the Garden
by John Rich
August 15 – October 15
Photographer John Rich spent the last year visiting New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill and capturing the Climate Garden and the Garden of Inspiration from a truly unique vantage point: from above. The result is a collection of photographs that offers a rare aerial view of the Garden, highlighting seasonal transformations and shifting daylight. Each photograph displayed in this exhibition preserves an instant in time, enabling the viewer to glimpse the Garden’s cyclical changes, from moments of bloom and growth to decay and rest.
Experience the natural beauty of the Garden from a whole new perspective. Seasons of Change will be on display in the Milton Gallery from August 15 to October 15. This exhibit promises to be a visual treat for anyone who appreciates nature’s beauty and the art of photography.
This exhibit is included with General Admission. We recommend purchasing your tickets online in advance to secure your preferred date. You can also buy tickets in person at the Garden.
More About the Artist
John Rich is a Boston-based photographer and videographer. He earned his B.A in Anthropology at Northeastern University from which he credits his inquisitive nature and desire to explore a diverse range of visual interests. He has been a photojournalist, street photographer, sports shooter, and teacher. For more than 20 years, he has worked as a commercial photographer, shooting for a wide array of corporate, non-profit, and academic clients.
John’s editorial photography has appeared in Sports Illustrated, Harvard Magazine, and The Boston Globe. At the same time, he has created photo-based art, and this personal work has been exhibited around the U.S and Europe and has won numerous awards. More recently, he has become a licensed drone pilot and uses aerial photography in both his artistic and commercial pursuits.
A photograph is unique in its ability to visually describe a moment in time. Whether it’s a grandparents’ wedding picture, or Muhammad Ali standing over a vanquished Sonny Liston, a photograph’s greatest strength is its power to preserve an instant that otherwise will be gone forever. In doing so, photography enables the viewer to contemplate change and reflect on the passage of time.
Understanding this relationship between time and change is at the heart of my project at the Garden. I photographed each of the two gardens sixteen times over the course of one year from the exact same vantage points, using a drone camera. My trips to the Garden came at different times of day and in various weather conditions throughout the four seasons, capturing the gardens in moments of bloom, growth, decay, and rest. The resulting images, with their nearly limitless variation of color and light, give us a greater understanding of the cycle of change that occurs here.
Walking through the gardens at New England Botanic Garden can be a transformative experience. Each time I arrived to photograph, after my long drive from Boston, I could feel my body unwind, and a sense of calm pervade my heart and mind. Gardens require an enormous amount of work to cultivate and maintain, but they are enormously rewarding, as well. I hope this photo project adds to your experience of being here, and to your appreciation of what a special place this is.