Photographing Bonsai with Stephen Voss: Searching For Order in Bonsai

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.

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I’ve been researching the work of an early nature photographer named Eliot Porter for the photography newsletter I write. Porter was one of the first nature photographers to use color film and a contemporary of Ansel Adams, a renowned photographer and conservationist. But Porter’s work did not feature the bold colors and blazing sunsets of today’s nature photographers. Instead, he sought subtlety and interrelationships of color and form. 

Later in his career, Porter read James Gleick’s “Chaos: Making a New Science,” recognizing in the text the scientific theory that had guided his career and visual thinking. He then published “Nature’s Chaos,” a collection of photographs from the natural world, which sought to reconcile his work and these scientific ideas. In the introduction, he explains this idea:

Although subjects such as mosses, lichens or leaves that have just fallen are not orderly at all, when viewed as detailed sections, they become orderly. This process suggests a tension between order and chaos. When I photograph, I see the arrangement that looks orderly, but when you consider the subjects as a whole or on a larger scale, they appear disorderly. Only in fragments of the whole is nature’s order apparent.

Where this gets interesting to me is with bonsai, which are, to varying degrees, sculpted by the human hand and meant to be seen as a wholly arranged object. A bonsai master guides the trees on a path to order, but it’s an ever-evolving relationship that may take unexpected turns. Much of my bonsai photography is a search for order, picking out the most aesthetically pleasing parts of a tree while trying to acknowledge and appreciate the basic chaos ever-present in the nature world.

So how does one find visual order when photographing bonsai? To demonstrate, I’ll use some photographs of this beautiful Japanese Beech that has been in training since 1945 and was donated to the Museum by Kiyoshi Kawamata.

My first image of the tree looks like this:

Here we see a beautiful forest-style planting with at least 16 individual trees (and a young Museum visitor in the background). 

To find order, we’re going to use all of the tools of photography that are at our disposal. This includes available light, exposure, lens choice and depth of field.

Now Here’s a first attempt at bringing some order to this image. I decreased the exposure so the background would darken. This helps the grayish-white branches to stand out more.

I also recomposed the image. Notice how more of the individual branches are now isolated against the dark background? I’ve circled those gaps here in red. Our brains are designed to look for contrast, to delineate based on light and dark tones. By darkening the image and composing it to allow more of the branches to stand out, I’ve already introduced a bit of order and made a more visually interesting photo.

Let’s take it a step further. I’ve changed to a longer lens for this image (180mm macro) and lowered my tripod. In this image, the tree trunk that’s slightly off-center is the main focus:

As I continue perusing the tree, I see some younger branches that are growing off to the right side of the pot. Using low depth of field, I’m able to isolate them against the soil at the bottom of the pot. 

Here’s my first image:

But I’m wondering if there would be a more visually impactful way to show the beautiful curve of this branch. By recomposing so that the branches are seen against the black platform the trees rest on, it stands out even more, as seen here:

I’m not sure which of these images I like more. But trying out ideas is important when you’re taking photographs, not making too many judgments in the moment, knowing that you’ll be able to review the images later and determine what was successful.

Thanks for following along. I hope you all are staying safe and healthy. While the Museum may be closed, you can use the ideas I talked about here on gardens, trees and even houseplants. Learning to see order in the chaos of nature allows you to bring a new visual acuity to your photographs.

Photographing Bonsai with Stephen Voss: A Winter’s Visit

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.

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Washington, D.C. has resisted giving itself over to winter this year, with 70 degree days and only a handful of nights below freezing. On one of these warm January days, I visited the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum to photograph the trees in the winter light.

While the trees are the main attraction, the Museum grounds are not to be overlooked. The cryptomeria-lined entrance gives you the sense of moving from one world to another, emerging through the main gates to the courtyard where a single tree can be seen.

Stephen Voss

To find the majority of the trees, you must walk through the Chinese Pavilion, in which the trees spend the colder months. The open air building boasts a roof of translucent glass, which keeps the pavilion a few degrees warmer than outside. But more importantly, this glass is the key to creating some of the most beautiful light the Museum sees all year. The low-angled winter sunbeams scatter and soften as they pass through the panes but somehow still retain a certain crispness as they fall upon the resting trees.

The trees are often just inches apart from each other, allowing for one to observe the collection as a miniature bonsai forest – a remix of the typical presentation that gives each tree its own space. In these tight configurations, there are photographs to be made exploring the relationships between the trees.

Stephen Voss

There are signs of life to be found in the pavilion even a third of the way through winter. Camellias are bursting with blooms and the Chinese quince’s jewel-like green buds erupt skyward. Winter light in the Chinese Pavilion never comes from straight above, but shines from hard angles, reflecting the shortened daylight hours.

Stephen Voss

The Toringo Crab Apple, in training since 1905 and one of my favorite trees, still bears some small yellow fruit that faintly sways in the breeze from the circulating fan.

Winter is a season of rest and stillness, and I don’t think there’s a better time of year to visit the Museum. Over the year and a half that I was photographing my book – In Training, A Book of Bonsai Photos – the majority of the photographs were produced from the two winters I spent there. The bare deciduous trees become abstract forms, and it’s at these times that the invisible hands of the bonsai master’s work are most clearly seen. 

Photographing Bonsai with Stephen Voss: A How To

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.” He will be writing a regular 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.

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When I began photographing the trees at The National Bonsai & Penjing Museum, I knew little of bonsai and had even less of an idea of how to take pictures of the miniature wonders. What I did know was that, if I wanted to have any success at this, it would be by creating something new, apart from the tree itself. 

Making a photograph to record what something looks like is a perfectly reasonable goal, but it only scratches the surface of the expressive possibilities of photography. But where do you start? Here is an exercise to partake in if you’re just getting your feet wet in the realm of bonsai photography:

Walk around the museum, being sure to look at all of the trees until one catches your eye. It’s not a bad thing if that tree happens to be in good light (open shade for instance, not bright sunshine).

Stand in front of that tree, set a timer on your phone for ten minutes, and do nothing. By nothing, I mean just look at the tree. Bend down, look from the side, just don’t stop looking at it. Notice the way light hits different parts of it, think of the generations of people who have worked on this tree and try to find something new about the tree that you’ve never seen before.

After 10 minutes, take 15 shots of the tree, each one different than the last, like so:

At some point during this exercise, you may find yourself questioning the whole enterprise, feeling foolish or that you've simply run out of things to see. This feeling is part of the process. Without this doubt and uncertainty, without exhausting your sense of what’s there, you can’t really make progress. As someone who’s felt these unsettling, frustrating feelings many times in my photographic life, I urge you to just keep at it, keep looking, keep seeing.

Learning to see is a strangely undeveloped skill for many photographers and developing it requires time and patience. But why bother? If you’re like me, with no discernible skill in working with bonsai, but a deep appreciation and love for the trees, looking closely is a form of appreciation, a way to connect. With a keen eye and a bit of luck, it can also be a way to turn that experience into a meaningful photograph. 

Read his last entry here.

Photographing Bonsai with Stephen Voss: An Introduction

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. 

Now that he’s an accomplished photographer, Voss wants to share his “tricks of the bonsai photography trade.” He will be writing a monthly blog covering everything from lighting, angles and mindset needed when photographing the trees, beginning with this introductory blog. Sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Facebook and Instagram to never miss one of his entries!

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Voss’ photography journey began while growing up in New Jersey, when he photographed his friends skateboarding and printed the pictures in a self-published magazine called “Skatedork.” 

After graduating from The George Washington University, where he took some black and white darkroom courses, Voss moved from D.C. to Portland, Oregon where he took photos for the city’s weekly paper and cemented his love for photography.

“Coming out of college, I knew I wanted to be a photographer, but I didn’t really have a sense of how that could become a career,” Voss said. “My degree in computer science helped me pay the rent, while I developed my photographic career shooting just about everything you can think of for the paper in Portland.”

The paper’s “on-the-job education” exposed him to many interesting people and situations every day, which he said is one of the most alluring aspects of photography. 

“The experiences made me realize that what I loved most about photography was the way it could serve as an entry point to pursuing my curiosities,” Voss said. 

One of Voss’ first big projects led him to Zhengzhou, China, where a local environmental activist showed Voss multiple villages that had fallen victim to water pollution induced by factories located upstream.

(Voss) Pollution enters the river in Zhengzhou, China.

“I saw empty homes where all the people living there had died from various forms of cancer,” Voss said. “I saw blackish, foul-smelling water coming out of pipes originating from a fertilizer factory, just upstream from where people fished and drew water from wells.”

(Voss) Trash accumulates in the river in Zhengzhou.

News organizations like CNN and BBC that picked up the story featured the photos he took in the villages. Voss said his shoot in Zhengzhou taught him the power and limitations of photography. 

“While the factory eventually stopped polluting the river, it was the work of the activists who effected change, any contribution the photographs made was peripheral at best,” he said. 

Photographing Bonsai

Voss has been visiting The National Bonsai & Penjing Museum since 1998, when he was still a college student. He and his girlfriend, now wife, took the long cab ride from Foggy Bottom to the U.S. National Arboretum to wander through the Museum and marvel at the Capitol Columns, Voss said. 

“When we moved back to D.C. in 2005, we visited the Museum on the morning of our wedding and frequently bring our children there to visit the trees,” he said. 

Voss now frequently brings his children along on his Museum visits. Voss’ son looks through the view finder.

Voss now frequently brings his children along on his Museum visits. Voss’ daughter enjoys the view.

Voss’ first attempt at photographing bonsai stemmed from frustration in his professional work, taking portraits of famous politicians and athletes. He said the work is fast-paced, which is exciting but can also be hectic. Voss said that when he wanted to begin a new personal project, he turned to the trees.

“I may have just a few minutes to try to make a meaningful image of someone before they had to rush off to their next appointment,” he said. “I wanted a subject that would allow me to take my time, and the trees felt like a perfect fit.” 

Voss spent months photographing the trees without thinking much about what he would do with the finished products, and he struggled to find what he could add to the living works of art through his project. 

Voss composing bonsai photos at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum.

“Sometimes it felt similar to photographing paintings in a museum,” he said. “At some point, I realized I was more interested in trying to portray something of the spirit of the trees, not just a literal representation.”

Early on in his project, Voss debuted a selection of his images to Jack Sustic, who served as the Museum’s curator for 13 years. Voss said Sustic supported his mission to capture the trees’ essence through a camera lens and encouraged him to continue his project. He took about 12,000 images of the Museum’s bonsai collection in one and a half years.

“I knew I had the makings of a book project once I had a selection of 50 or so images that I liked,” he said. 

(Voss) One of Voss’ favorite shots of a red maple, which has been in training since 1974, at the Museum.

Voss then raised money to print the book through a Kickstarter campaign and worked with a design company to lay out the pages. 

“The printing process took quite a long time,” he said. “I only received my first books from the printer in Hong Kong the day before the book release party!”  

After his years of working hard and delving into the world of photographing bonsai, Voss’ book, “In Training, A Book of Bonsai Photos,” is now widely circulated. You can purchase a copy of “In Training” here.