Flower by Andrew Zuckerman

The world of plant photography has been thoroughly explored. From the ugly, poorly composed photos of online plant catalogs to the striking plant photos some people have managed to capture with cell phones. It also seems like everyone owns a DSLR nowadays and can manage the occasional good picture of a plant or flower for their garden blog.

There are also many mediocre photographs (some on my very own garden blog, Flickr and Twitter) of plants and flowers floating around the web that are lowering the curve. When you have looked at hundreds of grainy, blurry, poorly composed and lit photos that have been processed to death it makes bad photos look good by comparison.

Because of all this, it has been a few years since I was impressed by photo of flower or plant. However, I did not realize that a garden photo had not moved me in years until I received Flower by Andrew Zuckerman to review late last year.

The American film maker and photographer’s latest offering is both inspirational and depressing. It is depressing, to me, in that we are the same age, take pictures of flowers, but only one of us has managed to impress me with a photo he took of a flower. Granted, there are differences in the cameras we use, but the quality of the gear can only account for so much.

Watch the Flower Book Trailer

Leafing through Flower you cannot help but shake that there is something different (maybe even magical) about the flowers, leaves, tendrils, petals, and stems he captures in the book. Zuckerman takes botanical photography and elevates it like no garden photographer has done before.

Common garden plants--along with plenty of exotics--are presented in exquisite detail. The style of photography employed reminds me more of celebrity portraiture, which is fitting since these are many of the stars of the garden.

“Garden porn” and “flower porn” are terms that are indiscriminately tossed around nowadays. They should be reserved for works like Flower that captivate and excite you.

Flower is 300 pages of the best plant photography you will ever come across. It is published by Chronicle Books. The cover price is $75.00. But you can probably find it cheaper online.