Heirloom Harvest: Modern Daguerreotypes of Historic Garden Treasures
By Amy Goldman, photographs by Jerry Spagnoli, afterword by M. Mark (Bloomsbury, 2015) Buy It NowFifteen years in the making, this stunning collaboration is a testament to the patient arts of gardening and photography. A passionate plant conservationist and award-winning author, Goldman opens the book with an essay titled “Fruits of the Earth,” detailing 25 years of stewardship of the historic 200-acre Dutchess County farm where she grows swoon-worthy heirloom varietals. But the centerpiece is a 120-page portfolio of Spagnoli’s breathtaking daguerreotypes. Lit and composed like classical portraits, these silvery, high-contrast images of such subjects as January King Cabbage, Marina de Chioggia Squash, Grover Delaney Watermelon, and Female Squash Blossom could be called vegetable nudes. M Mark’s reflective afterword provides “a mirror with a memory,” as the 19th-century daguerreotype process was once called. A superb gift selection for well-heeled gardeners and lovers of fine-art photography.