Larry Lederman’s Lens: Verdant Retreats

Posted in Photography on August 15 2016, by Todd Forrest

Larry Lederman‘s lens takes you to the Garden when you can’t be there and previews what to see when you can. Todd Forrest, Arthur Ross Vice President for Horticulture and Living Collections, provides a prologue to this new collaborative blog series with NYBG’s Horticulturists.

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If you are fortunate enough to visit NYBG on a weekday morning after the sun has risen but before the shadows have lengthened, you may bump into Larry Lederman standing with his camera and tripod in some far corner of the landscape. For more than 15 years, Larry, a retired attorney and member of the Garden’s Board of Advisors, has traveled from his home in Westchester County to photograph the Garden in all seasons. Over that time, he has amassed a catalog of images that reveal the beauty and complexity of our plants, gardens, and exhibitions in a way that only someone both intimately familiar with the Garden and uniquely talented could.

Larry’s photographs brought the pages of two recent books about NYBG to life. He spent countless hours walking through the Garden’s 250 acres to produce hundreds of photographs for The New York Botanical Garden (Abrams, 2016) and Magnificent Trees of The New York Botanical Garden (Monacelli, 2012). Larry has also exhibited his photographs of the Garden in the Arthur and Janet Ross Gallery and generously provided images for many other publications and projects.

In addition to his extensive portfolio of NYBG pictures, Larry has published and exhibited photographs of the interiors of historic New York City buildings, Rockefeller Family gardens in Maine and New York, and gardens and natural landscapes as far away as Greece, Rome, and Dublin—many of which you can find on his website. Larry’s photographs present a perspective on these places that is unlike the work of any other photographer I have seen. His pictures never seem static or staged—they draw the viewer in by somehow capturing and revealing the fleeting and dynamic quality of light reflecting off flowers and foliage.

Always interested in sharing his vision of the Garden, Larry has offered to create a visual diary of his frequent visits for the readers of Plant Talk. There will be no script or specific assignment—just the Garden expressed through Larry’s singular eye.

Enjoy.

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