COLDER MONTHS CAN BE PERFECT TIME TO PHOTOGRAPH GARDENS

The coronavirus has led more people to spend time outdoors, and many find themselves walking the same paths and gazing at the same trees or shrubs day after day.

Author and self-taught landscape photographer Larry Lederman suggests looking at your surroundings anew by turning a camera on them. Fall and winter, he says, are the perfect time to take up landscape photography.

There’s the gorgeous fall foliage but also the beauty of the bare trees and their shapes. Lederman says to start photographing now and then watch the year-round transformation of the landscape.

His new book, “Garden Portraits: Experiences of Natural Beauty” (The Monacelli Press), examines 16 East Coast gardens throughout the seasons, offering inspiration for novice landscape photographers.

“There’s something to be said for shifting one’s focus toward landscapes, particularly trees, many of which are at their most beautiful in the fall,” says Gregory Long, who was president of the New York Botanical Garden for more than 25 years and wrote the book’s foreword.

That shift in autumn is “liberating,” Long says, “particularly when the focus is not so much on hedging and weeding, but more about beautiful trees and winding paths.”

Lederman started out by taking long walks through the Botanical Garden every Sunday morning, making a sort of photographic inventory of the trees.

His advice to those trying to shoot beautiful landscape photos: