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Photographing Bonsai

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Photographing Bonsai with Stephen Voss: Trees in Transition

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By Stephen Voss

Stephen Voss is an accomplished professional photographer and member of the National Bonsai Foundation’s board of directors. His photographs are held in the permanent collections of the Library of Congress and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

For many years, Stephen has honored an annual fall tradition of visiting the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum at the U.S. National Arboretum. He strolls the serene grounds, taking remarkable photos of trees in transition. Below, he shares reflections from his most recent visit in November 2024.

Each fall season at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum feels like an opportunity to learn something new about the colorful transition of vibrancy and change.

A wonderful Washington Post article outlined the life cycle of a leaf, and I was amazed to learn that as the leaves lose the chlorophyll that makes them green, they reveal their actual colors. That means that the fall colors we're now seeing have been there all along — waiting for this moment to set the museum alight.

The museum is never a static place, and on every visit I find a fascinating new discovery.

This time, I notice a sizable quince fruit hanging off a tree, and a beautiful selection of Chrysanthemums in the Vaughn Banting courtyard, outside of the exhibit space.

A profusion of tiny pollinators swirl around the garden mums along the Kato Family Stroll Garden, as small piles of leaves gather in the nooks and crannies of this peaceful place. The lack of rainfall this season has made for somewhat muted colors; there are more browns than oranges and reds, and we’ve had unusually warm days that maybe aren’t so unusual anymore.

For a long time, I came to the museum and went straight to the bonsai, drawn to their magnificence at the expense of the surrounding gardens. My photos for many years were close-up images, guided by minimalist tendencies. I still lean in that direction; but now, I’m also so taken by the interplay of the trees within the larger space, and how I might interpret these interactions visually. The whole of the museum contributes to the experience of visiting the trees.

Visitors pass through the exhibit space, murmuring questions about the trees and taking in their structural forms that are slowly revealed by the shedding of leaves. It occurs to me that not a day goes by at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum when someone visits who has never been there before.

As the seasons change, the Museum changes too — revealing another unique chapter in the story of this special place and these incredible trees.

All photos © 2024 Stephen Voss. (Thank you, Stephen!)

Click any of the images below to enlarge it. You can scroll through the gallery using the arrow keys or by clicking the left or right icons.

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Our Best Bonsai Photos of 2023

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Thank you to all of our supporters in 2023! You are the reason that the National Bonsai Foundation continues to thrive in our mission to preserve the history, protect the legacy, and prepare the future of the art of bonsai in America.

Whether you donated to the National Bonsai Foundation last year, visited the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum in person, or simply shared in the admiration of bonsai – your contributions to and participation in this great art form are deeply appreciated.

Through the course of years, decades, and even centuries, successive caretakers cultivate and nurture these incredible living art works. During our own lifetimes, the great responsibility and immense honor to care for these timeless trees falls to us. There is more to be done if we want to sustain the resilient beauty and persistent hope of bonsai for generations to come.

That's why, with your help, we will continue to sustain the art of bonsai in numerous ways throughout 2024:

  • We are proud to sponsor the National Bonsai Apprenticeship, the nation's premiere training program for up-and-coming bonsai artists. The renowned program prepares a new generation of American bonsai experts to ensure the future of the art of bonsai. Apprentices benefit from immersive education with professional curators and caretakers, hands-on experience with America’s national bonsai and penjing collections, and daily opportunities to hone their horticultural and artistic talents.

  • We partner with the U.S. National Arboretum to help maintain the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum, the first and finest museum of its kind in the world. We support new exhibitions of bonsai, penjing, and viewing stones, helping to share the magic of these art forms with the public. We also provide ongoing education and development for the curators, which offers expanded opportunities to keep current with the latest approaches and techniques to the art form, and allows them to gain learning to stay at the top of their field.

  • We inform, educate, and inspire people at all levels about this breathtaking art form. Through initiatives like World Bonsai Day, exhibitions around the country, hands-on workshops, and national awards, we continue to share and delight in these awe-inspiring trees that give us so much joy, hope, and purpose.

We are so grateful that you have joined us to support these initiatives. Our dedicated community includes everyone from bonsai artists with decades of experience to new enthusiasts who have just discovered the awe of bonsai. Wherever you find yourself on your bonsai journey, we value you and we're glad you're here.

Thank you for helping to cultivate this incredible living art form. Together, we can ensure a vibrant and enduring future for the art of bonsai.

Warm regards and best wishes for the new year!

Visit the Museum to see these beautiful trees in person.

Our Best Bonsai Photos of 2023

All photos courtesy of NBF Board Member and professional photographer Stephen Voss.

Click on any photo to see a larger version. You can then scroll through the gallery by clicking on the left-right icons or using your arrow keys.

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Photographing Bonsai with Stephen Voss: In the Fall

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I laughed to myself as I began composing this first shot. I’ve been the museum for fifteen years, and seriously photographing here for nearly ten of those years. And here, in front of me, was an essentially unchanged scene that I’d never spent a moment looking at. It was too obvious, and I’ve long felt an innate resistance to making those photographs that felt “easy”. But as a photography teacher once told me, pay attention to what you’re paying attention to.

And today, those beautifully carved letters were being accented by the angular Fall light and the whole scene felt as enduring as the trees themselves. I kept the camera’s shutter open for 1/3 of a second to capture some of the blur of the foreground plant as it swayed in the cooling afternoon breeze. Its impermanence felt like a welcome balance to the stone.

In the Fall, we see those most dramatic of changes and are given the opportunity to watch as the Autumn colors spill across a tree’s canopy. Each species has its unique way of expressing its color as the leaves lose their chlorophyll. Year to year, that transition can vary based on the weather and precipitation.

I’m appreciative of the museum’s minimal design that showcase these trees in front of white, lightly textured walls, so that their texture, shape and essential nature resonate outward towards the viewer. Soon, some of these trees will be transferred to the Chinese Pavilion where they will be protected from the coldest nights of winter.

This cycle continues as it has for decades, even centuries for some trees. For now, we get to appreciate them at their most showy—resplendent in these slowing days of Autumn.

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Bonsai By Night in Black and White

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If you've visited the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum at the U.S. National Arboretum, or if you've browsed through the photos on our website, you know how photogenic the bonsai collections can be. There is a special majesty to the trees on display, and the more time you spend with them, the more each one expresses its own unique artistic vision.

At night, an essence of mystery descends on the stone paths and serene gardens of the Arboretum and the Museum. Since the grounds are open during daytime hours, visitors don’t usually have a chance to see bonsai under the moon. When its dark, and especially in black and white photographs, a glamorous mix of shadows and light emerges among the trees.

These black and white photos of bonsai by night are uniquely alluring. The nocturnal setting and the stark style converge to showcase beguiling details of texture and form.

Which is your favorite photo? Let us know your reactions in the comments.

Click on any of the photos to view fullscreen. You can use the arrow keys or click on the left or right of each image to scroll through the gallery in the lightbox slideshow.

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Photographing Bonsai with Stephen Voss: An October Morning at the Museum

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By Stephen Voss

Stephen Voss is an accomplished professional photographer and member of the National Bonsai Foundation’s board of directors. His photographs are held in the permanent collections of the Library of Congress and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

The fall bonsai is a tree in transition. In October and November, we see some trees that have held onto their vibrant green leaves and others that have dropped their foliage practically overnight. In between these two stages are the trees that I went looking for on a recent visit to the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum.

That’s why I love this time of burnt oranges and dusky reds, of late afternoon sunsets, of growing shadows and that rich, autumnal scent of decomposing leaves. When I leave the museum after a morning of photographing, I know when I return the scenes will be different, irretrievably changed. It doesn’t take a photographer’s eye to appreciate the daily, even hourly transitions as a cold fall rain moves in, or a hard freeze strips a tree of its foliage.

In the scenes here, I became interested in isolating fall color to make it stand out more. I looked for brightly colored leaves that I could compose against the dark trunk of a tree or the cool white of the museum walls. A line of red leaves became a river of color. An opening in one tree became a blurry frame through which to capture another tree in sharp detail. For these sorts of photographs, a macro lens (or even a telephoto lens) is helpful in composing, and I made most of these images in the 90mm-135mm range. It’s an old photographer’s trick, but sometimes squinting your eyes a bit can attune you more to the lights and darks in a scene; this helps you create an image that acknowledges color as part of a photo’s compositional form.

On my last walk through the gardens on the late October morning when I made these photos, I was composing a close-up image of a fallen leaf in one of the large ceramic water buckets. Just moments after I pushed the shutter button, the waterlogged leaf sunk under the surface and slowly drifted to the bottom of the bucket. I left that day with my photo of that fleeting moment, and a reminder of the wonders of this beautiful place that gives us continual gifts of surprise and amazement, if only we give it the time.

Stephen

Scenes from the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum, October 2022. All photos by Stephen Voss for the National Bonsai Foundation.

Bonsai: A Look Sideways

National Bonsai Foundation Board Member and professional photographer, Stephen Voss, brings us his latest photo blog.

Revisiting the same subject over many years time allows one’s appreciation of it to deepen and be imbued with complexity and nuance. But sometimes, we will glance over a tree, having seen it many times before. I’ve sometimes found myself struggling with how I might photograph these trees after having done so many times in the past. Sometimes, changing your visual tools can be an effective way to force yourself to see the trees anew.

Tilt-shift lenses have been used by architectural photographers to make images of buildings appear perfectly straight, with no distortion. What’s interesting about the lenses to me is that they can also be used “wrongly” to pinpoint a small bit of a scene to be in focus. The name of these lenses literally comes from their ability to tilt and shift in relation to the digital sensor on the camera.

On a warm spring day at the museum, I spent some time wandering around, try- ing out this new way of seeing that seemed to bring a little abstraction to the more “straight” photography I’m used to doing. Focus in a picture is a way of directing the viewer’s eye, of making choices about what is important and what is not.

Typically, this has a lot to do with the distance of an object to the camera, but with this specialty lens, one can up-end that idea and create images where focus is a more nebulous concept. Trees take on an ethereal quality, the softness pulls the scenes out of the present and gives them a timeless feel that feels fitting for bonsai.

On a technical note - tilt-shift lenses can be extremely expensive, but there are many less expensive alternatives. Pictured here, I purchased a tilt-shift lens mount adapter that fit onto my Sony camera and could take Pentax lens with screw mount adapters. The whole setup cost less than 1/10 the price of a native tilt-shift lens and worked great.

Photographing Bonsai with Stephen Voss: The Pace of Light

On a warm summer’s day at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum at the U.S. National Arboretum time meanders. The daylight hours are long and no one’s in any rush. Hard light overhead casts sharp shadows that move imperceptibly over the off-white walls. A cloud or two occasionally gives respite, flattening out the light before the bright glare of the sun returns.

When the summer storms come in the afternoon, they arrive in force. The horizon darkens and a swirling mass of clouds announces the urgency of the moment. The rain arrives like a bucket of water being tipped over. Pale gray stone turns the color of volcanic sand and the trees vibrate with luminous greens and sodden browns, water dripping from their small canopies.

The storms rarely linger. Their last drops catch the reemerging sun, glimmering as they fall. Puddles absorb into the ground. Everything drips in a slowing rhythm. The brief respite of cool temperatures gives way to humid, subtropical air. Shadows pick up not far from where they left off. The trees cast their form on the walls which glisten and steam as they dry.

These time lapses are an attempt to record time passing in still imagery. Each consists of dozens and sometimes hundreds of images, taken at ten second intervals. Compressing time allows us to view these scenes in motion, to reveal what even careful observation may not pick up. The quickened moments reveal a place that is in flux, with light that is always moving.

I’m left with an even greater appreciation of the longevity of these bonsai. Each tree has seen hundreds of these moments, thousands of summer days, sudden thunderstorms, and all the hidden cycles of time that mark the passage of each day.

Photographing Bonsai with Stephen Voss: A Winter’s Quiet - Bonsai in Black and White

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In Washington, D.C., winter arrives in fits and starts, or sometimes not at all. In years past, we’ve gone the whole season without measurable snowfall. Nevertheless, in these months when trees are laid bare, we might allow ourselves to take a moment and to pause for reflection. The showy growth of spring is still weeks away and the bonsai at the U.S. National Arboretum’s National Bonsai & Penjing Museum are at rest.

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The graphic, abstract nature of the trees is most evident in the deciduous species, as their limbs stand out against the off-white backdrop of the Chinese Pavilion, where many of the trees spend their winter months. The deadwood of the coniferous trees can be equally striking, especially when composed against the dark green of the tree’s foliage. In each tree, there holds a promise – a slowly ticking clock that counts the days, waiting for the moment when each branch begins to push out leaves.

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For now, I’m embracing the already monochromatic nature of these trees and taking a different approach to photographing them. As an aside, many digital cameras have a black and white mode, but I’d recommend that you photograph in color and convert the image afterwards in your preferred image editing program. This will give you more flexibility in choosing how the image looks in black and white.

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When we photograph in black and white, we need to think as much about the final image we’ll be creating as the actual scene in front of us. In a monochromatic image, form, structure and shape are emphasized. The more abstract nature of a tree can come through. As the old photography saying goes, color photos engage your mind, black and white ones engage your heart. 

So what do we look for when photographing bonsai in black and white? I love photographing the texture of the bark. Frankly, this part of the trees can be nearly colorless to begin with, so emphasizing the grooves and patterns of the bark can make for an interesting image. This Japanese pine is one of my favorite trees in the collection, and its undulating trunk and beautiful, craggy bark makes for a wonderful image. One quick tip – when you convert these images to black and white, increasing the contrast and clarity (local contrast correction) can further emphasize texture and patterns.

Looking for differences in colors can also make for interesting black and white images. When you convert the image, the tonality of the colors can change and with a good conversion program, you can define how light and dark the different tones can be.

A light snow had fallen during my last trip to the Museum, and I took advantage of it to photograph these fresh footprints in the snow in the Japanese Pavilion. I’ve continued to enjoy exploring the visual possibilities in the entire Museum, not just the trees in my work. A snowfall makes for a great opportunity to realign how you see a place. When photographing snow, your camera’s meter may try to darken it too much, so it’s useful to adjust the exposure to brighten the image a little. You want to brighten it enough for the snow to look natural without losing all of the detail.

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We’re in the last month of winter here in D.C. Soon, the curators and dedicated volunteers will begin repotting bonsai when needed and bringing trees back outside. I’m hopeful the Museum will soon reopen and we will all be able to enjoy its wonder and splendor as the days grow longer and the weather warms up.

As a photographer who now makes a living snapping pictures of some of the world’s most influential figures, Stephen Voss didn’t always know that photography could be more than a hobby.  Once a bonsai novice, he certainly didn’t think he would publish a photography book of bonsai.

Now that he’s an accomplished photographer, Voss wants to share his “tricks of the bonsai photography trade.” This entry is part of his regular guest blog series, “Photographing Bonsai with Stephen Voss", published on NBF’s blog, covering everything from lighting, angles and mindset needed when photographing the trees.

Sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Facebook and Instagram to never miss one of his entries! Read his last entry here.

Photographing Bonsai with Stephen Voss: Fall Foliage at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum

A trident maple in its full fall splendor

A trident maple in its full fall splendor

By the end of October in D.C., the trees have begun to lose their summertime greenery. The colors that have long dominated the spring and summer here are in flux. The chlorophyll that defined the color palette of nature is waning, and brilliant yellows, oranges and reds emerge. I visited the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum on the grounds of the U.S. National Arboretum one afternoon to see these fall colors in the fading light of an unseasonably warm day.

Photographing at this time of year feels like a gift, an exuberant offering of beauty and color that crescendos here in November then quickly fades as we settle in for the browns and grays of winter. The shortness of the days gives us golden hours in the late afternoon, bringing warm light from a setting sun. 

LEFT: This photo was taken with the camera more or less on an even exposure. RIGHT: For this photo, I underexposed by a couple of stops (switching shutter speed from 1/125 to 1/500) and increased the contrast of the image in Photoshop.

As the sun sinks lower in the sky, I like to look for little pockets of light that have filtered through the trees, illuminating just a spot of a branch or particularly colorful leaf. If you’re able to adjust your camera’s exposure, you can deliberately underexpose the image a bit to deepen the colors and darken the background, as I’ve done above. 

Photographing into the sunlight gives the opportunity to see the colors of fall backlit and illuminated.

Photographing into the sunlight gives the opportunity to see the colors of fall backlit and illuminated.

The vibrance of the colors is magnified with morning dew or a bit of rain. On the gloomiest, rainiest days, there are great images to be made. As the old photographer’s saying goes, “Bad weather makes for good photos.”  

At dusk, the light softens and we get these beautiful, subtle tones on a ginkgo tree that has just begun to turn yellow.

At dusk, the light softens and we get these beautiful, subtle tones on a ginkgo tree that has just begun to turn yellow.

While I love golden light, I think dawn and dusk are the most interesting times to photograph. The light has cooled to a bluish tone, and the warm colors of the leaves stand out even more against their environment. In the gloaming, the hard shadows from direct light are gone and for just a brief time the drama of the sunlight fades and there are beautiful, subtle photos to be made. 

I placed a beautiful maple tree to serve as a splash of color to balance the wonderful stark white wall that shows off the tree in the background. Fall color can be part of your photographic palette and a compositional tool, it doesn’t always have t…

I placed a beautiful maple tree to serve as a splash of color to balance the wonderful stark white wall that shows off the tree in the background. Fall color can be part of your photographic palette and a compositional tool, it doesn’t always have to be the center of attention.

The trees changing colors at different times can be a great opportunity to show contrast and play with color. A particularly vibrant tree might make for an interesting macro (close-up) image, but you might also consider placing it in context. Sometimes we appreciate colors in nature more richly when they are photographed in comparison to their less vibrant surroundings. 

I was fascinated by these beech leaves, which showed the entirety of fall's transformation, from verdant green to the brown of winter with a pale yellow in between.

I was fascinated by these beech leaves, which showed the entirety of fall's transformation, from verdant green to the brown of winter with a pale yellow in between.

A macro lens allows you to use depth of field as a visual tool to sort out what you want to emphasize and not emphasize. I loved the distant silhouette of the cedar elm’s trunks that subtlety frame its foreground leaves.

A macro lens allows you to use depth of field as a visual tool to sort out what you want to emphasize and not emphasize. I loved the distant silhouette of the cedar elm’s trunks that subtlety frame its foreground leaves.

With the setting sun, a quiet comes to the Arboretum. While the museum remains closed, the dedicated caretakers of these trees continue their work each day. These days, they are preparing the space for winter and for the time when they can reopen the doors for visitors to enjoy these special trees in person once again. Whether you have a bonsai collection of your own, or can simply see fall colors out your window, it’s a great time to pack a bag and walk through nature to interpret its splendor.

As a photographer who now makes a living snapping pictures of some of the world’s most influential figures, Stephen Voss didn’t always know that photography could be more than a hobby.  Once a bonsai novice, he certainly didn’t think he would publish a photography book of bonsai.

Now that he’s an accomplished photographer, Voss wants to share his “tricks of the bonsai photography trade.” This entry is part of his regular guest blog series, “Photographing Bonsai with Stephen Voss", published on NBF’s blog, covering everything from lighting, angles and mindset needed when photographing the trees. This has been a special entry in this series given the times.

Sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Facebook and Instagram to never miss one of his entries! Read his last entry here.

Photographing Bonsai With Stephen Voss: A Visit to the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum During Quarantine

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On May 13, the sun was shining on a beautiful spring day in Washington, D.C. As I drove through Rock Creek Park, trees formed a vibrant cathedral of green over the road, which was nearly empty of cars as Washingtonians remained home to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. 

I’d been given the unusual privilege of going to the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum in the midst of the District-wide shutdown to take photographs for the National Bonsai Foundation’s 2019 Annual Report.

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On the premises of the U.S. National Arboretum, the Museum has always been a quiet and peaceful place, ideal for reflection and for connecting with nature. Usually the parking lot is fairly full, and both visitors and staff can be seen walking the grounds.

But May 13 was different. Only essential staff were allowed on site, and work days were staggered to encourage social distancing. Walking toward the Museum, with the Capitol Columns in the distance, I didn’t see a single person. The grounds felt emptied out, reclaimed by the quiet.

At the Museum, staff had been doing the vital work of keeping the trees healthy. The lack of visitors meant more ambitious projects could be undertaken, like repotting the famous Yamaki pine and letting the foliage of other trees grow out because they wouldn’t be on display.

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Walking through the Museum alone, I felt both enormous gratitude and a sense of sadness, that others could not currently experience this living monument to bonsai.

But in these trying times, under the watchful eye of Museum staff, the trees have thrived. Their tenacity is a sign of hope, a reminder that the trees have persevered through other trying times. Outside these walls, the world shifts, our country convulses – but the trees endure. 

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As a photographer who now makes a living snapping pictures of some of the world’s most influential figures, Stephen Voss didn’t always know that photography could be more than a hobby.  Once a bonsai novice, he certainly didn’t think he would publish a photography book of bonsai.

Now that he’s an accomplished photographer, Voss wants to share his “tricks of the bonsai photography trade.” This entry is part of his regular guest blog series, “Photographing Bonsai with Stephen Voss", published on NBF’s blog, covering everything from lighting, angles and mindset needed when photographing the trees. This has been a special entry in this series given the times.

Sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Facebook and Instagram to never miss one of his entries! Read his last entry here.