Each plant has a story to tell. Each plant is not just a bundle of striving molecules like us, but a set of ideas-made-flesh, a library in bloom. In the exhibit The Book of Life: A Photographic Bibliography, Artist-in-Residence Becky Jaffe pairs her photographs of the UC Botanical Garden with books on ecology, evolutionary biology, and ethnobotany in a visual ode to Nature’s spellbinding storytelling. Join us for this special talk by the artists held in the Garden's historic Julia Morgan Hall.
A photographer, naturalist, and educator living in Oakland, California, Becky Jaffe is active in the Bay Area photography community, teaching Art of Seeing courses for advanced fine art photographers, curating group exhibits in galleries and greenhouses, and judging competitions at the Berkeley Camera Club, the Contra Costa Camera Club, and the Alameda Photographic Society. She is the 2019 Artist-in-Residence at the University of California’s Botanical Garden at Berkeley, where she has served as a docent for over a decade. She is fortunate to teach photography and art history internationally as a lecturer for Cal Discoveries Travel. In her dedicated photography practice, she uses in-camera techniques that stretch the photographic medium to create painterly effects, fusing an artist’s sensibility with a biologist’s curiosity in order to communicate reverence for the natural world.
Jaffe's photographs have been recognized by the California Academy of Sciences, the Center for Fine Art Photography, the Entomological Society of America, the Japanese Consulate in San Francisco, and have been published in The Buddhist Poetry Review, Bay Nature Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle and National Geographic’s Your Shot. She is represented by the Abrams Claghorn Gallery in Albany, California. If you would like to purchase a print, inquire about speaking engagements, or find out about upcoming exhibits, classes and workshops, please send a hastily-improvised haiku via the form below. Happy Seeing!
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Cancellation Policy: Notification two weeks prior to program receives full refund; less than two weeks receives a one-time credit toward another Garden program to be used within 90 days; less than 48 hours from program start, no refunds or credit will be given for cancellations or absences. In the event that the Garden has to cancel a program you will be offered a full refund or the option to transfer to another program.