Silver Gelatin, 16x20, 2018

Connecting with the nature I live in is very important to me. Every six weeks or so my sister and I go down into our forest to perform a Druid ceremony. I always love this time that we spend under the giant maple tree while reflecting on our lives and past and reconnecting with nature.  Many of the trees were planted years ago by the people who lived here before us. While their house is gone their legacy lives on in the trees they cared for. 

This fall I have been working about six days a week, and have been leaving the property and island on my days off. I have missed my connections with the trees. I did not share in making cider this year, or preserve any produce from the garden. 

As I was walking to my house for lunch one day, I caught a glimpse of one of our trees out of the corner of my eye and suddenly the thought that “I should photograph bark” hit me and I have not been able to shake it from my mind since. Every time I thought about shooting another project I could feel the bark at the back of my mind calling me to explore it. 

I used this project as a time to slow down, to spend time outside, and pay my respects to the trees I share my life with. This has enabled me to reconnect with them and study them in detail. While photographing them I spent time with each tree, look at it up close instead of just walking by. I laid my hand on the bark as I took the photo. In the darkroom, and with the final prints, I could study the tree’s bark in more detail. Now as I walk past the trees I think of the photos of each other them and the time I spent with them.