Friendly Friday: In the Garden

Sandy

Sofia is our guest host for the Friendly Friday Challenge and she’s posted a tough topic for me: In the Garden.

I am not a gifted gardener or grower of things. Is there an opposite to a green-thumb? That’d be what I have. Unfortunately (for this challenge) my disinterest in gardening extends to photography. Despite crawling through my archives, I could not find a single picture of flowers in a garden.

I did find this one photo taken in the Singapore Botanic Gardens … which just about expresses how I felt about being there. The gardens were beautiful but it was a very hot and humid day. I was also feeling frustrated as I taking an outdoor photography lesson with someone who had a very oblique style of instruction.

I remember crawling around in the dirt, trying to take an interesting perspective according to his guidance. His guidance being “Take a picture.” “No, not that one.” “Nope, that’s not it either.” “Ahmm. No.”

So without pictures of gardens or stories about gardening … what do I share for the challenge?

Here’s a song about a garden. It’s by July Talk, a Canadian group known for their high energy and really good sound. When I need an injection of rock, this is one of my favorite bands.

Do you have a more relevant or irreverant take on GARDENS? Why don’t you pop over to Sofia’s page & post your Friendly Friday response. I’ll be looking out for it too 🙂

32 Comments

  1. Love how your “lack of garden” is so filled with feelings and images of it!
    And that sculpture is one of my favourites!!!! I love your very unique capture of it – despite your frustration with the instructor, you obviously managed to exercise your creativity! (I would have likely left the class – teachers like that REALLY frustrate & aggravate me).

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    1. I’m not surprised that you recognise this sculpture. SBG seems to be one of your favorite places 🙂
      My issue with the instructor had a lot to do with my then newness to photography and the Singaporean sense of humor. He had an accent which I hadn’t yet gotten to used to, and he used a lot of local idioms .. which I’ve never gotten used to. I’d need a lifetime of living there to know all the Singaporean slang! I’m sure you appreciate what I mean Ju-Lyn 😉

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      1. I hear you Sandy! I grew up here and still have trouble keeping up with lots of the local slang – and as slang often does, evolves with time. So the new breed of slang is almost foreign to me.

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  3. I had a few rose bushes once, didn’t work out. Never did figure out what the black splotches on the leaves were. Now, I have hedges. Cut and trim, easy 🙂
    I do have tulip pictures from a garden tour in Holland, way too many to bore you with 🙂

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    1. Ha! Ha! I know. An interesting fact about this sculpture: It’s supposed to show happy carefree times, with kids horsing around & playing a game called ‘Chang Kuda’ which was popular in Singapore-Malaysia in the 50’s & 60’s. In Malay, chang means ‘to carry’ and kuda means ‘horse.

      Like you, I didn’t find much joy in the kids’ faces but if looked at from a distance, they do look like they’re having fun.

      https://fahcheong.com/chang-kuda-10/

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    1. I discovered the merits of pruning a couple years ago. I have one hardy rose bush in my front yard which despite my best intentions, has survived and blooms every summer. I’ve learned that if I remove the dead heads, it blooms even more! I once got so enthusiastic with pruning, my contracted gardener asked me to stop 😉

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  6. I’m no gardener (my husband looks after our tiny patch) but I do enjoy exploring pretty gardens and photographing the flowers. I was surprised to read that you had not a single photo of a flower! That photo instructor sounds like a waste of time to me, that’s not even proper guidance, let alone instruction 🙄

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    1. Flowers & gardens are things that I appreciate seeing in real life but not in photography.

      As for that instructor … he was an odd one. A typical gear-head ( he was Fujitsu-Leica-wannabe and snarked at my Sony camera), believed in guidance by criticism (call it the carrot AND stick method 😉 and had an unfathomable Singaporean accent. I met my best friend there, when she acted my interpreter, so that was a good outcome!

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  7. Hi Sandy, it’s interesting you’re not into gardens at all. I think my love for them blinds me to the fact it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. It reminds me when we were in Japan and visited loads of gardens. The couple that came with us where not having a good time at all, until we decided to each do our own thing. Kudos for your photo tho: it does seem to sum up your feelings on the day!

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