/journal · photo ·

A Walk in the Garden

Reflections on captured nature in the urban jungle.

Interior of a glass greenhouse with a peaked metal-framed roof, lined with bonsai trees displayed on wooden stands and stone benches. An open doorway at the center leads out to lush green garden foliage and a sandstone-paved path. A bamboo screen runs along the right wall.
Wilderness, kept
Camera
Fuji X-E5
Lens
XF 35mm f/1.4
Focal
35mm
Aperture
ƒ/5.6
Shutter
1/140s
ISO
500
An ornate garden pavilion with a metal roof and a triangular gable featuring an intricate turquoise scrollwork design over a wooden backing. The structure is supported by green posts and surrounded by dense, manicured greenery, flowering vines, and a potted plant in the foreground.
A small temple to no god in particular
Camera
Fuji X-E5
Lens
XF 35mm f/1.4
Focal
35mm
Aperture
ƒ/1.4
Shutter
1/2200s
ISO
500
The upper portion of an ornate green wrought-iron and glass gazebo or conservatory, viewed from below. The domed roof features elaborate scrollwork and decorative medallions, with scattered leaf debris collected on its surface. Leafy tree branches frame the top of the image against a pale sky.
Verdigris and iron
Camera
Fuji X-E5
Lens
XF 35mm f/1.4
Focal
35mm
Aperture
ƒ/2.2
Shutter
1/550s
ISO
500
A spherical glass-and-metal pendant lantern hanging by a chain from the vaulted green ceiling of a wrought-iron conservatory. The lamp has a decorative crown-like top and a leaf-shaped finial below. Intricate ironwork windows are visible in the soft-focus background.
Light in a cage
Camera
Fuji X-E5
Lens
XF 35mm f/1.4
Focal
35mm
Aperture
ƒ/2
Shutter
1/125s
ISO
800
A lush indoor atrium with hanging baskets of trailing plants, pink flowers, and Spanish moss suspended from a wood-beamed coffered ceiling. Dense tropical foliage fills the foreground, with warm-toned columns and a tiered balcony in the background.
Spanish moss in a modernist atrium
Camera
Fuji X-E5
Lens
XF 35mm f/1.4
Focal
35mm
Aperture
ƒ/1.4
Shutter
1/200s
ISO
500

A collection of photos I took at the Denver Botanic Gardens. This was my first time using focus peaking on my Fuji X-E5 and boy, was I missing out.

I’ve been shooting the X-E5 like every other digital camera I’ve used: half-pressing, trusting the box to find the subject, firing away. Functional. Forgettable.

I went out with the intention of slowing down and getting more comfortable with digital and creating a scene. So I flipped the focus ring to manual, turned on peaking, and started shooting the way I shoot my film cameras: deliberately, one frame at a time, actually looking at the thing before I committed to it.

It turns out all I had to do was shoot my digital camera like a film camera and my photos turn out better. Funny how often that’s the lesson. The constraint wasn’t the gear. It was me, moving too fast to see.