Figure 2 – “Gnarl” (c) DEWolf 2013
It seems a good time to make some photographic resolutions for the New Year. So here goes:
- Focus on seeing. Isn’t this what it’s all about?
- Spend more time taking photographs. If you love doing it, you should do more of it.
- Slow down, concentrate on composing the image, on setting and checking the light.
- Learn to photograph trees. They are worthy subjects, but can be difficult to compose, difficult to get the light right, difficult to isolate, and difficult to disentangle from power and telephone lines.
Your suggestion for 2013 to “learn to photograph trees” made me to look for the umpteen’s time at James Balog’s volume T R E E: A NEW VISION of THE AMERICAN FOREST. Mr Balog expands the scale of our emotions when we think of trees. His photographs of redwoods for example capture the view one might have from a descending balloon. On its vertical travel Mr Balog takes 100 or more photographs on its passage of the tree. These are assembled in a mosaic where the frames of the tree are continuous but the background appears more or less repetitive, like in a Kaleidoscope. The tree is thus rendered rectilinear without distortion in its overwhelming majesty. The edges of the adjacent frames showing the background are sometimes slightly offset and create a mosaic-like, artistic impression while reminding us intuitively that from a close distance our eye has to digest and assemble what it sees in small parcels to appreciate its glory.
Should I take my camera to the pawnshop? Not so. My photographs of trees are very private entries in my diary; they help me to recreate later what I saw in a reflective moment; they are also a tokens of reverie for nature’s magnificent creation. I will wait for the right season and time of the day to do it justice. Maybe that is what Mr. Balog tries to instill in us. On the other hand I feel a little like the amateur pianist who covers the Beethoven bust with a black bag before playing the piano.