Shot! The five best artworks at the 2017 RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show
There’s more to the world’s biggest flower show than plants and gardens

Whenever I’m at Chelsea or Hampton Court, whilst the show gardens are where I spend most of my time, I’m always on the lookout for something to shoot that isn’t plants, hard landscaping or the odd celebrity. Among all the floral displays are exhibitors showing off their latest artworks. There are lots of them, so focusing on the very best is what it’s all about. And then, when you’ve found something that catches your eye, deciding how best to capture it with your camera.
I always want my shots to be out of the ordinary, so for me, the creativity lies not in simply taking a good photograph of a piece of artwork, but shooting it in a way that’s not straightforward. I often say it’s about finding the hidden image within the image, which means it’s everything to do with the composition.
Talking of not being straightforward, these days, whether you’re showing off a show garden, presenting your prized plants or putting on a display of your wares, just turning up at an event like Hampton Court is no longer enough. If you want to get noticed you need to engage with visitors and above all you need to get yourself featured across the social media platforms. That means finding ways of creating interesting photo opportunities and encouraging people to post their pictures on Instagram.
This year, five exhibits stood out for having something special about them. The question however was were they also being as artful as they could be with their involvement?
The first of those was John O’Connor, a Suffolk-based sculptor working in bronze and resins. Now over the years I’ve probably shot John’s sculptures more than any other artwork. His figurative work is immediately identifiable, both in the extended limbs that most of them have and in the distinctive rough hewn finish he gives them.

Usually, I hone in on one piece and having missed visiting him at Chelsea this year, I was immediately drawn to one of his new works — Kissing Couple — the first example I’d seen of John incorporating two figures into one piece.
I’ve suggested to John that he experiment with different colours and this year most of his bronzes had a gold finish to them. That being said, while my images of Kissing Couple focus on the interlocking heads, I’ve given them a twist by portraying them in blue, rather than gold.

When I was on John’s stand a fun thing happened: several people were having pictures of themselves taken mimicking the poses of his sculptures — such as standing with their arms outstretched or doing a handstand. Although this happened spontaneously, I think it could well be something John encourages in the future for maximum Instagram exposure.

Next up, Farrow & Ball. The upmarket Dorset-based paint company were participating at Hampton Court for the first time…and doing so in quite an unusual way. They turned up in Morris, a vintage milk float — painted of course in one of their colours. I think it was a rich teal called Vardo.
That and all 131 of their other shades were displayed apothecary-style inside Morris in old-fashioned milk bottles. What I liked most was the fact that they also painted the wooden units to match each of the paint colour they contained.
Visually, apart from the swathes of colour, what worked so well was the contrast between the shiny glass bottles and the matt shelving. Although I have to say some of the brushwork looked a little slapdash in terms of its finishing. But to me, they should have also pared things back. Including the wallpaper pattern books, for example, just messed up the aesthetic.

However, as good as the milk float was, I felt their presence could have been so much more experiential. Rather than the whole range —over half of which are subtle neutrals and muted pastels— I would have focused on just four impactful colours and gone to town on those. They even put ribbons on some of their latest ones, although ‘New for 2016’ doesn’t cut it in 2017!

For example, they could have given away milk shakes or ice creams in each of the colours. People could then have instagrammed hash-tagged photos of themselves drinking the shakes or licking the ice creams, with the best ones winning a ‘paintover’ for one of their rooms.
The third piece of art I wanted to include is by Lucinda Rogers a talented student at Bath College School of Art & Design. Her stylish floral wallpaper designs really impressed me and deserve recognition. Lucinda’s design for Lewis and Hood was shown in four colourways. I liked them all, but there was something about the blue version that appealed the most.

The problem for me was I didn’t just want a straight photo of Lucinda’s artwork. In the end, I decided to put it into a simple frame and give it a slight pillowed look. I also enhanced the colours as I felt the green leaves could do with a bit of a pop.
There’s definitely an oriental influence in her work, which apart from being beautiful to look at is I think, highly commercial. Beyond wallpaper, I could see Cinda’s Roses as a fabric for soft furnishings, bed linen and silk scarves, as well as being used for stationery and as a crockery pattern. What’s more, the RHS could do worse than commission her to create the graphics for the covers of next year’s show catalogues as, to my mind, they’ve become pretty tired and indistinguishable.
Also, Lewis and Hood should have done something more interesting than just displaying wallpaper artwork. For example, they could have hung a branded picture frame from the ceiling in front of a papered wall. People could then have had their photos taken behind the frame with the design as the backdrop.
The subject of my fourth set of images was the backdrop to a small show garden. Surrounded by a series of filigreed Corten steel panels, I wasn’t overly keen on The Colour Box Garden itself until I looked more closely at it from the outside through the cutouts in the metal. Things immediately looked very different.

By the way, if like me you hadn’t heard of Corten steel, it’s a high strength, low alloy, weldable structural steel that naturally rusts over time, producing a striking oxide finish. Those on the Colour Box were created by Surrey-based Stark & Greensmith who laser etch the holes in the steel. This particular pattern is called Drift.
Using various metal panels have become a popular feature on show gardens in recent years. Not only do they look striking, but they provide a great backdrop to planting. Copper and bronze metals in particular show off green foliage really well. I’ve seen metal used in different shapes, colours and patinas before, but I can’t recall ever seeing any that had been filigreed.

Of course, when you have large holes in a panel, what’s on the other side becomes visible. It’s why, photographically, these panels worked best when looking into the garden from behind them. For me, the effect was extraordinary, with the holes resembling a stain-glassed windows.

Mentioning of glass brings me neatly to Carrie Anne Funnell, an artist who specialises in that medium. As soon as I got close to them, I knew her glass columns would make some great images. But rather than photographing them individually, what appealed to me was finding compositions where one of her pieces blurred in front or behind another. This works as Carrie uses a predominantly turquoise and blue palette, so different pieces have a visual connection.

The colours she uses give her work a cool look, something which is emphasised by what she does with the glass, fusing air bubbles and contrasting layers in a way that looks both beautiful and natural. In fact, these works makes me think of slowly melting icebergs, the way the swirling shapes and colours either blend into or buttress each other.

Carrie achieves this by building the glass up in layers, starting off with blank sheets of clear glass. Colours are derived from oxides and ground glass and precious and non-precious metals which are then used between layers. Once the artwork is completed each piece is transformed within a four-day firing process.

Just like Lewis and Hood, Carrie could have done more to encourage people to interact and share images of her art on social media. For example, she could have made a piece with a window in it, so people could be photographed looking through a gap in the glass.

So that’s it. Five different artforms, from five very different sources in five very different media: bronze, paint, paper, steel and glass.

Behind the image: All these images were shot handheld with the Olympus OM-D E-M1 and either the 12–40 2.8 Pro or the 75 1.8 lens. When you’re rushing around a sprawling show like this on press day, much of your time is spent looking for interesting things to shoot rather than actually shooting. And, when you are shooting, you’re always conscious that you need to be quick in case you end up missing something else. It’s only when you get back look at your images and decide what you’re going to do with them that you think to yourself, if only I stayed a little bit longer and got a few more shots! Shot at Hampton Court on 3 July 2017.

