I love my garden and I love photography, so I joined them together,” says West Windsor photographer Judith Kennerk, whose “The Summer Gardens of Old Princeton Junction” is the winter photographic exhibit at West Windsor Library. The 30 photographs were taken last July and August in neighborhood gardens within Berrien City, Berrien Heights, and Princeton Gardens. All the images were created using black and white infrared film.
“Last summer I contacted my neighbors to ask if I could photograph their gardens,” says Kennerk. “Right in the neighborhood, I discovered a sculpture garden with a pond, a formal rose garden with a gravel path, a garden of herbs and vegetables, and a very formal Jeffersonian garden with gravel paths and marked borders.”
Kennerk, who has lived in West Windsor for nine years, says she really enjoys gardening and inherited a lovely garden when she bought her house. “It is a border garden with hastas, peonies, and roses.” Kennerk actually has a formal Charleston garden with boxwood creating an old-fashioned Southern garden. She previously lived in a condominium in Plainsboro for seven years — with only windowboxes.
Kennerk was born and raised in Miami, Florida. “I grew up with a family of gardeners. My mother, Dorothy, raised orchids — over 100 hanging orchids — as a hobby. We also had mangoes, avocados, and grapefruits in the garden that we could just go out and pick.” She still has memories of helping her sister, Mary, bring in the orchids to the garage quickly during hurricane season.
She describes her father, Perry, who owned his own industrial gas distribution company but is now deceased, as “an old-fashioned, down to earth Midwestern man. The only gardening he would do was rake.”
After graduating from the University of South Florida with two bachelor degrees — one in photography and one in advertising and communications, she moved north to study graphic design at Pratt Institute in Manhattan. Kennerk is the director of marketing for a firm in New York City.
She also currently has a photograph in the Mercer County College Art Gallery Show on exhibit through the end of February. A surreal image, she shot the photo in Florida in a small zoo. Kennerk’s photography has previously been exhibited at the Tampa Bay Art Center and the University of South Florida.
“I use infrared black and white film because it is very sensitive to heat and light,” she says. “The images are very grainy, which gives them a unique aspect.” She develops her own film and rents darkroom space in New York.
Kennerk considers “The Summer Gardens” to be a joint effort of the neighborhood. Besides letting her photograph their gardens, one neighbor made up a poster and others offered help.
There are only two images of people in the exhibit and one is of a former neighbor. “A remarkable person, she lived in the neighborhood for 70 years,” Kennerk says. “If you look at her fingertips in the photo, you will see that they are black; she was in the process of moving huge tree stumps.”
“Old gardens are the best because they have been nourished for so long,” she says. “There is history in these gardens — 19th century and early 20th century Berrien City was the home of Elliott Nurseries and later there were victory gardens. This is an old-fashioned area with a lot of life.”
