China is a popular topic for photographers. The country's economic transformation, large factories and the environmental fall out of this progress have fueled the majority of the imagery. Louis Porter goes in the opposite direction and focuses on the smaller scale, the urban constructed floral landscape. His book 100 Flowers is a small soft cover bursting with the colors of flowers in various states of planting in Beijing just before the 2008 Olympic Games.

Porter, an Australian photographer who completed the series from June to August 2008, shows a side of China that is rarely published. His view is idiosyncratic. It is the edges and nooks and crannies of the flowerbeds that he focused on. Flowers are cornered in places, seen from the viewpoint of someone strolling by, or of the worker planting them.



Published by Lozen Up in an edition of 100, it is presented simply and directly. The photographs are vertical which allows for large single images on a page or grids of four or nine pictures. The printing is excellent; the vibrant photographs reproduce evenly which allows for details in the rich colors of the petals.

The book is framed by a quotation from Mao Tse Toung printed on the front cover. I can grasp what Porter is after by relating the pictures of the flowers to this historical movement. In a way, China was opened to other voices briefly during the Olympics. Has there been another crackdown? Am I reading too much into this, I wonder? It is then that I dive back into the bright pages and get lost in the small details.




Returning to the book and looking closely at the smaller pictures in the grids, I find Porter's subtle humor. It's a hard book to put down. I keep picking it back up because I like the size and the feel of it in my hands. It has a journal feel to it, which adds to the experience. I wish more books were like this one. —Tom Leininger