SEEING THE FOREST FOR THE TREES

 

I have always been fascinated with trees.  When I was very young, it was their massive size.  The feeling of tilting my head back ninety degrees to stare at their tops (not so easily done now) still remains.  Later, when I began to climb and lay cradled in a solid branch gazing at the world below, it was their strength I came to appreciate.  As I began to travel deeper into the woods, I came to appreciate their utility, the special qualities of different trees that could provide shelter, sometimes food, and warmth.  And when I took up the camera, it was their beauty that began to captivate me.  I looked for trees that Ansel Adams, Michael Kenna and Josef Sudek, artists who helped me discover the beauty of a single tree on a hill, or a gnarled elder hundreds of years old, might have photographed.   

 

But recently it is the forest itself that has become my muse.  I find that my vision has shifted back and I am now looking not just at trees but have come to be captivated by the interplay of groups of trees with each other and with the environment.  The series of photographs, Amongst the Trees, Beech Forest, By The Water, By The River, Weston Field: High Summer, Winter Fog, and Winter Woods, chronicles the past four years from earliest to most recent work, and explores wooded areas all within an hour's drive of my home.  These trees are communities of life I am allowed to enter, and for me parallel the life I share with people.