40 Under Forty: A beautiful day at Tower Hill

Photo | Erika Sidor 2018 WBJ 40 Under Forty winners and members of Team Tower Hill: Ben Jones, Jennifer Leger, Grace Elton and Efua T. Dufu.

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The problem with having a photo shoot at Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston isn’t looking for a great background for photos. The problem lies in narrowing it down to a manageable number.

Luckily for WBJ’s 40 Under Forty photo shoot with in July, we had a guide – the best guide you can ask for, really.

Tower Hill’s young CEO, Grace Elton, was among the 40 winners this year, and she explicitly signed up to be in the photo group taking their shots at the 176-year-old botanical garden – Team Tower Hill: Elton, Efua T. Dufu, Jennifer Leger and Ben Jones.

The four of them had already planned elaborate outfit coordination: white and black outfits with a pop of red color through jewelry and ties. Jones, wanting to make sure he got just the right shade of red to match the women’s jewelry, brought about a dozen ties, dutifully carrying them from location to location as we took the various photos.

And with Elton leading the way, it was seamless to move from one great natural location to another.

The most obvious location – where Elton led the team, myself and photographer Erika Sidor right away – was the stickwork installation “The Wild Rumpus,” inspired by the children’s book “Where the Wild Things Are.”

Dufu, Leger, Jones and Elton played among the mini caves and sticks, with the only issue in the photo shoot was making sure no sticks covered their faces. One of these photos, with the four winners peering through a window-like opening in the sticks, was the runner-up to the 40 Under Forty magazine cover contest.

We could have shot all day at Tower Hill and gotten great photos every time, but unfortunately we only had a little over an hour. This still left plenty of time to visit installations like Pliny’s Allee, The Secret Garden, the Systematic Garden and The Court: Garden Within Reach.

With a mix of flowers, fountains, steps and sculptures, Sidor had a lot to work with, and Team Tower Hill was game for about anything.

The end result was Tower Hill had the best set of differing photos of all the 10 locations for the 40 Under Forty photo shoots.