Flowers and fish
Rakesprogress is in one sense a gardening magazine, but its approach to flowers is more artistic than practical. In her editor’s letter, Victoria Gaiger sets out her intention to spend more time “under the five apple trees at the bottom of [her] garden”. While not every reader will have the opportunity to recline under her very own apple tree, if you avoid taking Rakesprogresses’ life hacks too literally, there are some very delicious photographs to be enjoyed in this issue.
Some of the most striking images are collected in a feature entitled ‘Flowers in Quarantine’, which sees floral artists from around the world contributing bouquets. What I like about these images is that they are often surreal: we see orchids, dripping with jewels, and floating in a simulated lake; petals frozen into an ice sculpture; flowers attached to the ceiling with a metal chain.
My favourite photographs aren’t of flowers at all, they’re of fish. Photographer Esther Bellepoque and stylist Camilla Wordie pay homage to the British painter William Scott, known for his still lifes of kitchen implements. Bellepoque and Wordie’s images are fantastically mundane, of skillets surrounded by odd bits of food.
