I went to Skylands (New Jersey Botanical Gardens) the other day. It’s something I like to do at different times of the year. I was hoping for fall colors but they weren’t really around just yet. It’s pretty empty of people during the week unless they are having a wedding at the manor house. Which reminds me, have you ever caught the reality show Masters of Reception? It’s a show about a family of caterers based here in New Jersey and they use Skylands Manor as a venue for weddings all the time. It’s kind of fun to watch the show when it’s taking place only miles from your front door. I think they just aired the last show of the season but you can probably catch it on reruns. It’s actually pretty good. If you want to see real New Jersey people in action, this is it. Not Real Housewives of New Jersey! Except that I know many of the locations and restaurants that were featured on Housewives. Real locations. Not so sure about all the housewives. Some, yes. Others maybe not. But, I’m getting off the track here.

Skylands is a peaceful place of wide grassy lawns and plenty of places to sit and relax. Many exotic and different species of trees not indigenous to the area were brought here by the original owner of the manor house, and today they are all thriving.

It was supposed to be a sunny day but the sun kept going in and out of passing clouds, so I was a bit challenged photographically speaking. It was pretty breezy too with little micro gusts of wind at times, which is never good for trying to photograph flowers. But I clicked my camera to the sports setting and persevered. Some flowers were still blooming in their perennial garden.

I came across two women who were had their easels set up and were painting en plein air.

I asked one of them if I could take a peek at their work. She said sure. Her left hand was clutching five or six brushes loaded with different colors of paint; her right hand daubing paint onto the canvas board as we chatted a bit.

I told her how I wished I could paint and that my Father had been a really good artist but that I was disappointed I had not inherited his talent. In fact, that I had two left hands when it came to drawing and painting and such. Since her hands were already full she lifted her chin and gestured in the direction of the camera hanging from around my neck. She said “You take photographs though, right?” I nodded and said “Right, but it’s not the same.” She shrugged as if to disagree.

As I walked off and left them to their painting, I started thinking about what she had said and that maybe she had something there after all. I may not be able to draw or paint but I do express myself artistically through my photography. Bad or good, like them or not, my photography is as much an expression of me as a painting would be. What I see when I look through that camera lens and what other people see looking through the same camera lens may be very different things. The capture I end up with is uniquely mine. Sometimes my fingers itch to commit to paper a certain scene or flower but they never follow through. They just don’t deliver. The camera does. The world is my canvas, all the things in it are my paints, and my camera the brush.