If I were lucky enough to be Alice and fall through a rabbit hole, in my wildest dream I would land in Beth Dow's photographic series titled In the Garden. I would stroll through image after luminous image, savouring the humid warmth of an overcast summer day in Hampshire, marveling at the intimate spaces she carves out of whole scenes that surround her.

Left to right; Topiary, Barnsley House; Passage, Levens Hall; Trees, Blenheim Palace. From the series, In the Garden. Copyright Beth Dow, courtesy Joseph Bellows Gallery.

The images, which are edgy and sometimes a little noirish, are etched by a kind of natural light that many photographers would consider undesirable for black-and-white work: bright afternoon sun veiled by high clouds that create a milky haze above, and a near lack of shadows on the ground. And they are printed in a traditional process - platinum-palladium - that recalls an earlier time. By consistently working within this framework, Dow has created a camera vision that reminds me of the great British photographer William Henry Fox Talbot'sThe Pencil of Nature. explorations in

That notion sent me to the bookshelf for my copy of an issue of Aperture celebrating the 200^th anniversary of Fox Talbot's birth. In an essay by Mark Haworth-Booth was a quote that bridges the centuries. When speaking with a group of London scientists in 1839, Fox Talbot (1800-1877) told the story of his invention of photography as if it were a fairy tale. He said, "It is a little bit of magic realized: of natural magic. You make the powers of nature work for you, and no wonder that your work is well and quickly done....But after all, what is nature but one great field of wonders past our comprehension."

Dow, a native of Minneapolis, moved to London for several years in the early 1990s. She began photographing formal gardens at great houses, a long term project she has returned to in subsequent visits. In this series, the consistency of the light and the print quality create a sharply defined and somewhat otherworldly aura. In Yew, Hinton Ampner, a conifer stands sentinel before a claustrophobically framed lawn surrounded by a low hedge. The glare of sunlight selectively bleaches tall oak trees, whose forms recall the landscapes paintings Thomas Gainsborough made in the 1760s. But Dow's representations are absolutely contemporary, and some reminded me of the ominous topiary maze in the 1980 Stanley Kubrick film The Shining. Dow's point of view for Trees, Blenheim Palace, combined with her signature light, conspires to virtually eliminate shadows from the scene. This formal device is also evident in Lawn, Hall Place, in which benches placed some distance apart seem ready to welcome ghostly visitors to the nearly shadowless expanse of lawn.

Hillside, Waddesdon Manor, reminded me of Wynn Bullock's Enchanted Landscape, but filtered through the stomach-churning opening sequence in Michaelangelo Antononi's 1966 film, Blow-Up. A row of still trees towering over a marble statue, itself hemmed in by converging slopes, seem about to be whipped into a frenzy by an oncoming summer storm. That a straight-on view of trees, grass and statuary could create such a vertiginous effect is the work of a master.

A strong narrative thread of events, of people and places, and of photographic history runs through In the Garden. And whether Beth Dow has considered the ideas of W.H. Fox Talbot or not is beside the point. For anyone interested in alternate versions of the sublime, looking at these pictures is both engrossing and delightful. And for those who have a library of photograph books at hand, looking at these pictures inspires a visit to a treasured volume for further immersion in the camera arts.

This article first appeared in Hotshoe International. Beth Dow: In the Garden was presented by Joseph Bellows Gallery last spring. The book, In the Garden, which won the 2008 Photography.Book.Now.com, is available online. Visit Beth Dow's website.

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