Journal // Derek Henderson
We recently chatted to photographer Derek Henderson about his latest project, a collaborative project with florist Simone Gooch, named 'Rosa'.
Rosa is an art publication which honours the historical significance and aesthetic value of the roses within.Henderson captures Gooch’s unconventional, expressive and poetic sculptural arrangements with the formalist precision and casual warmth that we have come to know him for.
"The project came about from a story about Roses in Pleasure Garden a magazine out of the UK. I went there with a florist Simone Gooch (Fjura) in December 2018."![]()
"When we were there we were amazed at the number of different roses they had at Matthews Roses in Whanganui. So we decided to return there a year later to take more images for a book."
"We spent a week in the Fordell Hall where Simone would set up the arrangements and I would photograph them on my 4 x 5” large format camera using colour negative film."
"There are about 50 images in the book with a description of all the roses used thanks to Matthews Roses naming every rose we used, I think that was actually more of a task than taking the photographs."
"It was one of the most rewarding and cathartic things I've done for a long time."
Buy Rosa here
