First part of this early morning commuting trip was a walk in the rain, and against my usual habit I had enough time when reaching the station. Well, meanwhile it’s still dark when I leave, but the wet plaster made up for nice reflections to frame those poor, forlorn-looking small box bushes. It will take a decade until they get the figure appropriate for this setting.
This reminds me of a Sam Abell story, how he wasn’t allowed to take photographs in a garden in Japan. After Abell insisted quite strongly, he was told to come back, but not before 2 pm. By that time the monks tending the garden had sprinkled water over all the plants by hand. The garden was meant to be viewed only when wet.
I’ll have to look up this story in my Abell Book – but I think it’s not in “The Life of a Photograph”, probably more in “Seeing Gardens” (which I don’t have, yet). And you are certainly right: rain and reflections certainly gave this scenery a very special mood.
Yes, indeed, it was in the “garden book”.
The place is a bit like a stone garden – maybe the little trees are an artist’s statement?
I fear it was meant nothing less than artistic, with utmost canniness vulgo greed as the dominating motive. On this public boardwalk there were 3 small beds with brushes that got neglected and became ugly. When deciding to replace it, the responsible authority decided to go the lowest-budget way.
But in the end it turned out almost like a transformed zen garden, which is wonder-ful.