Get On Our Level: Photography from a Plant’s Perspective
Marlon Co is the Photographer and Digital Media Manager of the New York Botanical Garden.
The author in his natural element.
For the past 10 years it has been quite an adventure to be the photographer here at NYBG. For much of that time, our focus was to provide our audience with a sense of place, allowing them to see views of what they might encounter on any stroll through our 250 acres. While accomplishing the broad sense of portraying the Garden, this restricted perspective didn’t allow much space to bring our audience closer to what inspires us in the first place: plants!
New growth captures the sunlight as the trees reawaken.
What if we saw things from the plant’s perspective rather than our own? What would that reveal? Over my many years of traveling around the Garden—and through extensively photographing its collections—it became an inescapable question to answer. Being naturally curious, I began to look closer.
It’s true, there is an almost surreal wonder that exists when you immerse yourself in the botanical paradise that is NYBG. Details abound, and getting lost in them is something I routinely find myself doing, even when not actively taking pictures. Even after all these years, I oftentimes find myself awestruck, thinking that where I am cannot possibly be real—but in a world full of AI and photoshop, what a relief and joy to know that it is. As humans venture further into virtual spaces, it’s as important as ever to showcase the true, real beauty of our world, and I’m proud to say there is no digital trickery here. Just light, nature, and a bit of serendipity captured through a lens.
This is not stock photography: this is the real NYBG.
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- See the Garden from a tulip's-eye view.
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- An anemone flower dressed in morning dew.
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- Japanese apricot blossoms attract the first of spring's bees.
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- Spring crocuses in bloom.
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- A Japanese camellia catches pools of sunlight in its petals.
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- Snowdrops cast a shadow on an early morning.
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- One of The Orchid Show's stars after watering.
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- Weeping cherry blossoms bloom outside the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory.
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- A honeybee visits a blooming daffodil on Daffodil Hill.
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- A magnolia flower bud waits to open.
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- Daffodil Hill shows off crowds of blooming flowers.
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- Cherry blossoms fill the air with color on a spring afternoon.
We invite you to see the real NYBG as well. Get up close and examine the details! Be curious! Find that inspiration! Change your perspective—and what will you discover about plants, the natural world, and perhaps about yourself? Is it the intricate structures of nodding hellebores? Maybe it’s gazing into a cherry tree’s canopy, sunlight igniting the blossoms in a soft glow? Perhaps it’s a gentle whisper of great things to come, evoked by the opening of leaves after winter. It may just be the tiniest inkling of a feeling, but do we choose to take notice? Our change in focus begs us to, and I for one love the sentiment.
The nodding flower of a hellebore.
I sincerely believe that connecting to nature is one of the few pure joys left in an overly distracting and digital society. NYBG’s presence as an urban oasis in the Bronx offers that joy, and more, with its depth being as deep as your own curiosity. Whether it’s the most diminutive of spring ephemerals blooming in the Native Plant Garden, or you’re audibly gasping as a downy woodpecker lands on the railing next to you, hoping for a midday snack, pause and take notice. This is the magic of being here. Embrace it and smile. Maybe this is just the breath of fresh air we all need. So take a seat, take your time, and be present. Here’s to discovering a whole new NYBG, and to discovering your own curious nature.
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