This afternoon (Friday) it was a bright, sunny and crisp afternoon , so I decided to take my little whippet dog, Ruby, on an extra walk. We went to the Duck Park, I had by big coat on and Ruby had a rather fetching purple leopard print coat. I also took a vintage Russian lens, the Helios 44M-4 2/58 (that’s 58mm, f2) from 1984.
As we made our way to the sensory garden, I saw a lady with a purple high vis jacket on. I asked her what she was doing wearing the high vis. She did a twirl and showed me the back of the high vis and it read “Volunteer Gardener”. She was working with council worker gardener, Martin (stranger number 189), so I had a good intro to talk to her knowing Martin.
Jeanette has been “volunteer gardening” for two years (I think she said two years) and also volunteers up at the country park.
Martin and Jeanette were cutting back bushes, I remarked that the dogwood had been cut back nicely, which impressed Jeanette that I knew my plants and bushes.
“You can join us as a volunteer if your want” said Jeanette. I said I had a nice garden at home which needed looking after, so declined her offer.
Jeanette had several jobs in her career. She started off as a florist, was a cost clerk at the Coal Board, did some Butchery before finally returning to floristry again.
Floristry and gardening were her passion, she loved gardens.
Martin and Jeanette had been planting trees last week as it was “National Tree Week”. Bare rooted trees said Jeanette. They had come from a nursery in north Notts, but with all the recent wet weather the nursery had found it difficult to lift the trees.
When I asked Jeanette for a photo, she agreed straight away and I directed her towards the garden borders as I knew her high vis jacket and her white hair would look great against the dark shaded bushes .
I told Jeanette, I was shooting with a vintage lens, so it would take a while to get the focus. The Helios 44M-4 is renowned for it’s sharpness and as you can see it produced a pin sharp shot at f5.6.
Thanks for being stranger number 197 Jeanette, enjoy your gardening.
Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at the 100 Strangers Flickr Group page
https://www.flickr.com/groups/100strangers"
My own strangers can be seen here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/57144254@N08/albums/72157657822400168
