Photos Capture Whimsy of Radnor's Chanticleer Gardens

If you’re someone who believes in the existence of sin, allow me to propose that it may be considered one to live in Radnor Township and not visit Chanticleer, the pleasure garden in Wayne that draws visitors from around the world.

The garden is great not because it is well funded and well known but rather because it exists to be a place of pleasure and leisure for all of us, the public. It is there to be enjoyed by and to inspire us, the ones who kill cacti and can only boast patches of wild mint in our beds.

With the mere flash of a Radnor library card and a $5 bill, Chanticleer opens itself up to you and the unlimited photographic stills we can fit into our minds.

But capturing the most divine moments of beauty can be difficult for most of us, which is why there are professional photographers like Rob Cardillo, whose photographs of the gardens over the past five years are part of a new book and exhibit.

More than 40 of Cardillo’s approximately 5,000 photographs of Chanticleer are currently on exhibit (and for sale) at the . Most of the works, printed on archival paper and modestly framed, run $450.

Cardillo’s photos will also be featured in the upcoming book, Chanticleer: A Pleasure Garden, written by Adrian Higgins, who writes about plant life for the Washington Post.

The exhibit, which runs through March 19, features a mix of “gardenscapes” that portray the variation and natural design in Chanticleer and captivating close-ups of botanicals–the kind you know your camera can never get.

Cardillo, who lives in Ambler, says that Chanticleer is the most aesthetically designed garden in the country that he knows. He said it doesn’t shy away from whimsy and has a reputation for “taking chances.”

(During the upcoming season the garden will be opening a new woodlands section within its 47 acres.)

The photographer, hired by the garden to capture Chanticleer in different seasons over years, has been given access–like early morning and winter–that the public has not. Sometimes he has been the only one there.

Cardillo, who makes a living photographing gardens for books and magazines but rarely exhibits, says the spontaneity and surprise he finds in the garden is like “running into a jazz trio in the middle of a concert hall.”

Yes, the garden is meticulously maintained and in some ways is formal, but it’s got soul. And humor. And lightness.

What’s more, “Everything has been considered from an aesthetic point of view,” he said.

In his visits to Chanticleer over the years, Cardillo said he would vary the time of day and year and try to take a different path through the gardens. Along his route of solitude, he would look for nuances he never noticed before and find new points of view.

But in the end, “A lot of it is chasing light.”

Cardillo will be giving two free talks about photographing Chanticleer at 1 p.m. on March 5 and 12 at Wayne Art Center.