A film on the Bosco della Ragnaia

I am busy preparing the shooting of my first documentary on a garden. Sheppard Craige, the artist-gardener making the Bosco della Ragnaia, commissioned me to make a film on his garden. The Bosco della Ragnaia, is one of the most fascinating contemporary garden in Italy, with Craige designing it far away from clichés and as a piece of art and above all far away from all ‘deco’ trends.

I have done several radio (sound) documentaries for BBC Radio 4 and the French cultural channel France-Culture, and I am often shooting videos on news subjects for the Agence-France-Presse (AFP) but this will be the first time I will work on both sound and image for a documentary on a garden…I have started recording sounds and interviews a while ago with Sheppard Craige and the shooting is planned for May.

Why I like gardens at night

Yesterday evening, when taking pictures, I understood why I like gardens at night:

My grandparents had their house built after World War II on the outskirts of a small French town. It was very simple, there was not even a bathroom or toilets inside when I was a child in the seventies. The vegetables cooked by my grandmother were coming from the edible garden. We also had cherries, apricots, peaches and plums in the summer, walnuts, apples and pears at fall. When I was staying there, which was very often, I was spending most of my time playing in the wild part of the garden.

In the evenings, before I was going to bed, my grandfather was taking me to the toilets he had built at the back of the garden. During summer, it was dusk and I could see strange shapes moving in the trees, I could smell the strong scent of flowers and look at the stars shining in the sky. During winter, it was really dark and my grandfather was lighting the path with his small flashlight while holding my hand. I was frightened by many strange noises, by branches which were moving with the wind. Sometimes, he was lighting up a tree with the ray of light, bringing suddenly colors to the dark night. I was discovering a very different garden from the one I knew at daytime. It was a world of secrets, darkness, a garden of very bright colors unveiled on a deep black sky without stars, a place of wonders.

I like taking photos of gardens at night. It brings me back to my childhood.

My Rome’s garden at night:

Sheppard Craige’s Bosco della Ragnaia in Tuscany :

A garden in the Tuscany’s landscape

I spent a very nice evening talking about gardens, art and politics with the creator of the Bosco della Ragnaia, Sheppard Craige, and his wife, sculptor Frances Lansing. Apart from the Bosco, a huge amazing garden which is his masterpiece, Sheppard is making a small private garden near his home on the top of a Tuscan hill. I like very much how he gave the feeling that the garden is melting with the round shapes of the beautiful landscape around. Frances is also doing two gardens there, much more closed and I would like to photograph the edible garden, surrounded by walls and beautiful metal doors designed by Frances, later in the season when the vegetables will have grown.
If paradise does really exist, it might be in Tuscany…

Bosco della Ragnaia

I went late December to catch the very early morning winter light at the ‘Bosco della Ragnaia’ in Toscana. It was the second time I was visiting this beautiful and very special garden. I spent the evening with its gardener, American artist Sheppard Craige, had a long chat with him about Louis XIV and the making of the garden of Versailles, while eating a Lasagna with white truffles, a speciality of the village. Sheppard is a former landscape painter, now designing a nine-hectare wood and field garden as his masterpiece, far away from any trends. If you go to Toscana, make a stop at the Bosco, this is such an incredible place.