A Vignette

Julius Shulman

A major contribution to my sixty years of photography, which has embraced a worldwide association with the giants, has been that of my extended friendship with Garrett Eckbo.

Beginning in the 1940s, when Garrett became a neighbor, we found a rewarding common ground of respect for the world of nature. And when the architect Raphael Soriano embarked upon the design of my home and studio, Garrett and I immediately engaged in a discussion on the ultimate development of the landscape program: in mutual respect we began an open-ended discussion of my family's two acres of natural hillside and how the landscape could help us keep our early associations with nature—beginning for me with my childhood in Connecticut. Now, forty-six years later, our house is literally engulfed in a jungle-like environment. The redwoods are 80 feet tall, with a girth of five feet! Without the equation of two individuals harmonizing on the same "beat" of tuned-in choices about design and planting, our intimate associations with scores of birds, animals, and resurgent native plants, we would have lost my longed-for goal of living as a "nature boy"!

I sincerely believe that all of the above grew from Garrett's ability to create a spirit of integrity as he pursued the project's programming and development. What a blessing!

12 June 1996