Brookside Gardens

Author's Comments

Fifty acres is not enormous by the standards of the region, but Brookside uses every inch of what it has. The park is organized and intentional in a way that wilder places are not, and I have come to appreciate that. This is a garden in the full sense. Someone chose where every plant lives. The rose garden in early June, before the day heats up, is where I usually begin. The light catches the petals edge-on and the color sits differently than it does at midday, when everything flattens. I bring a macro lens and I move slowly. There is no reason to hurry here, and the garden seems to punish people who try. The Japanese garden is smaller than you expect and better than you expect. In early April the cherry blossoms come in against the dark pond and the effect is quiet and restrained. This is not the Tidal Basin. There are no crowds pressing in behind you. You can sit on the bench near the water and watch the koi move and make exactly the photograph you wanted without negotiating for the space. The Wings of Fancy butterfly house runs May through September and it is genuinely worth the small admission. Warm, humid, full of motion. Portrait photographers could do worse than to bring someone they love into that room on a June morning when the light through the greenhouse glass goes soft and diffuse. Brookside does not dazzle the way a mountain overlook does. It asks for attention instead, and it repays attention generously. I have left with photographs I did not expect to make, which is usually the sign that a place is worth returning to.

Gallery