Amazon.com Review
In his 1990 book Stay This Moment, National Geographic photographer Sam Abell wrote, "There are few fresh photographs of gardens because photographing beautiful things is difficult." Now, almost as if in answer to himself, Abell has produced Seeing Gardens, with 150 quiet, intensely gorgeous full-frame images from around the globe that stand as a testament to his ability to do exactly that: photograph beautiful things in a fresh and inventive way. In his simple, elegant text, Abell provides insights into how he came to take many of his better known images, such as National Hotel, Moscow, Russia, which features a handful of pears resting on a windowsill with the Kremlin in the background. Perhaps never before have Abell's sumptuous photographs been placed in a more apt context--that of the garden, both in a literal sense, like his stunning images of temple gardens in Japan, and in a figurative sense, including his shot of a blue neon sign that simply says "FLOWERS." --Walt Opie