Bookshelf    Heirloom Harvest: Modern Daguerreotypes of Historic Garden Treasures

Heirloom Harvest: Modern Daguerreotypes of Historic Garden Treasures

By Amy Goldman, photographs by Jerry Spagnoli, afterword by M. Mark (Bloomsbury, 2015) Buy It Now

Fifteen 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.