These are not traditional botanical portraits. The plants I photograph are grown and harvested in my south London garden (The Garden Construct), or collected from specific sites across the UK and abroad (The Wild Construct). Each specimen carries visible evidence of the environment in which it grew.
Rather than seeking idealised forms, I focus on plants shaped by circumstance. Petals distorted by a freak hailstorm, leaves stunted by drought, or flowers blooming outside their usual season all speak to the pressures of a changing climate and the conditions of their local environments. These so-called imperfections become markers of place, time, and lived ecological experience.
Although human figures are absent from the images, people are deeply embedded within them. Many of these plants exist only because of human intervention: from 17th-century tulip breeders who shaped entire lineages, to Victorian and modern plant collectors who expanded what we cultivate today; from farmers who have created and maintained landscapes and their niche habitats, to modern industrial growers enabling mass distribution. Each photograph is, in effect, a record of the human imprint carried quietly within plant life.
In a world where plants are increasingly shaped by systems of mass production, these images present botanical subjects as individuals – still curated, but no longer anonymous. They draw attention to forms of life we often consider “natural”, yet whose existence depends entirely on human desire, need, or control. By revealing these layered relationships, I hope to invite a richer and more attentive way of seeing plants, and our place among them.
Benn R. Storey
The Garden Construct
Home-grown in Clapham, London
The Garden Construct series is made using plants grown and harvested in my south London garden. These works expose the specific environmental conditions in which each plant developed, from weather extremes to soil quality and seasonal irregularity.
I do not use pesticides or herbicides. As a result, insects, slugs, and snails often live on – and visibly affect – the plants I photograph. Rather than removing these traces, I choose to include them. Clusters of greenfly or slug-nibbled petals become part of the image, acknowledging the fragile and threatened network of insect life that surrounds us, and upon which our own food systems ultimately depend.
The Clapham Trees Series
Collected on Clapham Common, London
Clapham Trees is an ongoing photographic study documenting the trees of Clapham Common, London, over a five-year period from 2025–2030. The series observes a landscape in transition, recording both seasonal change and the growing impact of environmental pressures including invasive pests, disease and climate instability.
As species such as ash and horse chestnut face increasing decline through ash dieback and leaf miner moth infestation, the work considers how the character of Britain’s urban tree population may change over the coming decades. In a warming climate, many native species may struggle to survive, raising questions about what will eventually replace them and how future urban landscapes may look in 50 or 100 years’ time.
The Wild Construct
Collected from urban and roadside sites, various locations
The Wild Construct series brings attention to an overlooked botanical world. Specimens are collected from urban margins, roadside verges, and areas significantly altered or disturbed by human activity. These sites were chosen to explore the concept of plant blindness – the human tendency to overlook the plants that exist in our everyday environments.
Because plants rarely move, often grow in dense groupings, and share similar colours, our visual systems default to registering them as a homogenised background rather than individuals. This cognitive filtering allows us to navigate the world efficiently, but it also means we frequently miss the diversity, resilience, and beauty of the flora around us.
By isolating individual specimens and presenting them directly to the viewer, the work disrupts this habitual way of seeing. What is usually dismissed as a blur of green is revealed as a collection of distinct lives, each shaped by its environment.
Regeneration
Across both the Garden Construct and Wild construct series runs a core belief: regeneration is not only possible, it is often already underway – where given the chance. These disturbed sites show that life can recover, but the extent of that recovery remains dependent on human choices.
For centuries, farmers and gardeners lived in close alignment with natural regenerative cycles, shaping the land without exhausting it. More recent pressures – from war to consumerism – shifted this relationship toward maximum extraction and forced outcomes designed to meet short-term demand without considering long-term effects. My work reflects on this transition, and asks how we might once again live as participants within nature, rather than as a force acting upon it.
