CLIVE NICHOLS
Clive Nichols has turned his passion for the natural world into a successful career as a garden and flower photographer. He talks to David Clark about his work
When Clive Nichols first began shooting gardens back in the 1980s, he freely admits that he knew very little about them. Since then, he has acquired detailed horticultural knowledge, photographed many of the world’s most famous gardens and created a huge collection of over 75,000 images.
He combines a natural eye for colour, shape, pattern and texture with a perfectionist’s dedication for the ideal image. His photographs include magical early morning garden scenes, intriguing abstracts and fine art close-up flower studies. As he explains, he may not have known much about gardens and plants when he started out, but he knew a beautiful subject when he saw it…
When did you get started in photography?
I started when I was at Reading University in the mid-1980s, studying Human Geography. I was obsessed with travel and loved looking at the photos in National Geographic. Taking travel pictures and writing about different places around the world was my dream job. At the same time, I also had an ambition to be a chef. When I left uni, I worked in an Italian restaurant in Reading and became the head chef.
I did that job for about three years,
working six days a week, then I just burned out. I felt that I needed to do something different with my life and started to do travel photography. I literally switched overnight.
How long you did shoot travel?
I was a travel photographer for about three years. Luckily my girlfriend Jane, who I later married, supported me financially while we built up the photography business. That was a great help because she had a decent wage and I was able to get out and about and start taking pictures.
How did you get work?
We approached tourist boards and asked them to send me on free trips in return for providing them with photos. I went on some amazing trips, including to the Falkland Islands, Malta and Hong Kong. I was then able to sell the pictures on to magazines. I wanted to be a pro photographer, but it was always difficult making a living with travel. Sometimes I made hundreds of phone calls a day, trying to place pictures in magazines.
What made you start shooting gardens in the first place?
One day I thought, ‘Okay, I’ve got to do something that’s going to make me some money’ and I walked into Whsmith and started looking through the magazines. Gardening seemed to be in lots of magazines and I realized how popular it was becoming. There were several specialist gardening titles, so I thought I’d give it a go.
Did you know much about gardening at that stage?
No, not at all. I knew absolutely nothing about gardens. However, I’d always had a massive interest in nature and the outdoors. When I was younger I had gone out bird-watching and collecting butterflies with my dad. I didn’t know anything about plants and flowers, but I knew beauty when I saw it. So I started by photographing beautiful flowers.
Which other photographers have inspired you?
I really liked the work of American photographers like Tom Till, David Muench and Ansel Adams – landscape photographers that were homing in on little scenes and getting amazing detail. I used that approach a lot on gardens, which not many people had done at that time; most people were shooting wider scenes. I was also inspired by fine art photographers like Ron van Dongen and Karl Blossfeldt, as well as painters such as Georgia O’keeffe and Mark Rothko.
What was the first garden that you photographed?
I went to Westonbirt Arboretum in Gloucestershire during the autumn and took a lot of pictures. I chose the best ones and sent them on spec to Homes &
Gardens magazine. They immediately got back to me and said they thought they were fantastic and would publish them. After that I went to another garden and sold those pictures and it just snowballed from there. Things seemed to take off straight away.
What do you think it was that they liked about your pictures?
One advantage I had was that a photographer friend of mine, Brian Didriksen, took me under his wing and lent me a Bronica medium-format camera. Everyone else was shooting gardens on 35mm, so the extra quality from the Bronica images just blew people away. Magazines weren’t used to seeing it. The other thing is that there wasn’t a lot of competition. Gardening photography just wasn’t seen as a professional genre and there were probably only three or four people doing garden photography at that time.
How did you build your business?
I would shoot gardens on spec, then fix up meetings with magazines and show them my transparencies. I also placed a lot of images with the Garden Picture Library and they were sold around the world. Then, in 1996, the Royal Horticultural Society approached me and asked me to do a book called Photographing Plants and
Gardens. It was the first book I wrote and photographed. It really put me on the map and became the standard work on how to shoot plants and gardens.
What cameras have you used?
I’d had various cameras including an Olympus OM-10 and a Pentax 67, as well as the Bronica I borrowed. Then
I didn’t know anything about plants, but I knew beauty when I saw it, so I started to photograph flowers
I switched to Canon and bought one of the early digital cameras. The first serious camera I had was the EOS-1DS, which I bought soon after it came out in 2002. Then I moved on to the Mark II, then the Mark III, which I still use – it’s a brilliant camera. I’m just about to buy the EOS 5DS R. I’m doing an advertising shoot in Edinburgh in a couple of weeks and I have to produce huge poster images, so need the extra file size.
What lenses are in your kit bag?
I have the 24-70mm f/2.8 and 70-200mm f/2.8, which I use for wider scenes. They are both beautiful lenses. I have a 180mm f/3.5 macro, which is incredible for garden close-ups. I also have three tilt-shift lenses – the 17mm, 24mm and 45mm. I particularly use those lenses when garden scenes include architecture and I need to keep verticals straight.
What accessories do you use?
I use a Manfrotto tripod for most of my work, though occasionally hand-hold my camera if I’m shooting plant portraits. If I’m doing a commercial shoot and have an assistant, I’ll use reflectors and diffusers, but I tend not to do that if I’m shooting on my own. I don’t use many filters. Generally I like to keep it simple; I avoid using flash and use natural light as much as possible. Doing that gives the pictures a more natural look and a more accurate colour reproduction.
Has the transition from film to digital changed the way you work?
I used to bracket like crazy and would maybe use a whole roll of film for the same shot, whereas now that’s not necessary. I just check the histogram. These days I probably take two shots of a subject, maybe even just one, and I know I’ve got it straight away. It’s made the workflow a lot quicker.
What software do you use?
I use Photoshop. I was taught to use it by Stephen Johnson, who works as my digital assistant on commercial shoots and does all my high-end retouching. There’s an awful lot I don’t know about Photoshop, but I do know how to use it to get my pictures looking good.
What is your favourite garden to photograph?
One of my favourites is Pettifers in north Oxfordshire, which is a private garden open to the public by appointment. It’s an amazing garden, beautifully planted and it’s got a good structure. I also like it because it’s very near to my house, so I can easily get there early in the morning or late in the evening. Getting up in the middle of the night and driving to gardens a long way from home in time
There’s a lot I don’t know about Photoshop, but I do know how to use it to get my pictures looking good
for sunrise can be very tiring, and shattering if you do it too often.
Do you need in-depth knowledge of gardening to be a professional garden photographer?
I think you do, yes, because you need to pre-visualize what’s going to happen within a space. You have to hit gardens at the right time because they may only peak for three or four days. Therefore you need a good knowledge of gardens and what’s happening within them. They’re changing all the time and if you’re a day or two late it can ruin the pictures.
How do you know if a particular garden is going to be at its best?
I’ve picked up a lot of knowledge over the years, but I also usually ask the owners to tip me off a week or so before a garden – or area of a garden – is coming up to its peak. Also, some gardens have peaks at different times of the year. For example, Westonbirt Arboretum will look amazing in October and probably again in the spring, but in the summer it’s a bit green and boring. So you have to know gardens
A flower is not an inanimate object, it’s a living thing, and for me it’s like shooting a portrait of a person
and the plants that are in them. The more knowledge you’ve got, the better.
What garden subject do you most enjoy photographing?
Tulips. I like their shape and the number of different varieties and colours. It’s a very elegant flower and quite feminine – quite a curvy, sexy sort of flower. When it’s first thing in the morning they have a sort of sheen on them, a velvety texture. I always look at flowers as personalities and characters, and that’s what I’m trying to bring out. A flower is not an inanimate object, it’s a living thing, and for me it’s like shooting a portrait of a person.
What’s your favourite time of day for shooting gardens?
First thing in the morning, no question. I prefer it to the evening because the moisture levels are generally much higher. In the morning you get dew, cobwebs, beads of moisture and mist and fog – most of the time the mornings just have more atmosphere. By the end of the day that moisture is usually burnt off, so even when you’ve got beautiful light, you don’t have the same atmosphere.
Where does the majority of your work come from?
It mostly comes from magazines like
Country Life, The English Garden and Country Living. We sell a lot to magazines abroad and have done many calendars with the German publisher teneues.
I also shoot a lot of interiors, architecture, travel and lifestyle for commercial and editorial clients.
What’s your advice for people who want to shoot gardens?
First of all I’d say you need to select a good location and one that’s photogenic. It’s best to shoot gardens when the weather’s good and there’s little wind, unless you actually want subject movement. Mounting your camera on a tripod helps to keep everything sharp. If you’re shooting close-ups, it’s best to find the most perfect specimen and isolate it, ideally against a good background. Exclude anything that doesn’t contribute to the image.
Has one of your pictures been more commercially successful than the others?
Yes, the shot of Pettifers in Oxfordshire (on the opening pages of this feature) has been the most successful. We’ve just done a deal with Visit Britain, the official tourist website, as it has become an iconic garden shot and is shown on their website. I took it a couple of years ago at about a-quarter-to-five in the morning. A lot of people say to me that it’s not real
and that it has been enhanced, colourwise, but it hasn’t – that’s actually what it looked like at that time.
What’s been the highlight of your career so far?
I was invited to photograph The Prince of Wales’s private garden in Birkhall, on the Balmoral Estate near Aberdeen in Scotland. It had never really been photographed properly before. I went there with TV garden expert Alan Titchmarsh, who was writing an article about it. The pictures I took were made into an album for Charles and Camilla, and afterwards were published in
Country Life. I heard later that Charles absolutely loved the pictures, so it was a great experience.
What are the best and worst thing about garden photography?
The worst thing is travelling abroad somewhere to shoot a garden and getting frustrated by bad weather – wind, rain or whatever. It drives you mad. The best thing about it is hitting a garden at exactly the right time. Being in a beautiful garden in the dreamy light of early morning, with the smells of flowers in the air, is just the best feeling.
Clive Nichols runs a range of workshops throughout the year; see the Workshops page on www.clivenichols.com for details. Clive also runs an online Flower & Plant Photography Masterclass on www.learningwithexperts.com
The tulip is a very elegant flower and quite feminine – quite a curvy, sexy sort of flower