photographing woods

gnarly detail of exposed wood (I think)

When I was young, I used to love to photograph woods. Unfortunately, the photographs rarely revealed what I saw when I took them. In the end, I gave up.


gnarly detail of exposed wood (I think)

But now I’m living in Esch, with its massive country park, I am returning to the woods. I realised now that I responded, then, as now, to the form I saw in the trees. The photographs I took, then, though, came out dominated by detail. Woods have incredible detail, detail so strong the form was often lost.


a treetrunk divides a bush from the wood

Having said that, some of those old shots worked. Usually, those that did were shot in B&W.


is it a spider? no it s a tree. and blurry.

Now, in Esch, I shoot to destroy the detail, so my shots are dominated by form. I use colour to accentuate the form, admittedly a little too crudely (I need to work on that).


blurry treetrunks

All the same, have a look at these, these, these & these, and perhaps you might see the form I saw.