Photographing the Spirits Within Trees
‘But this isn’t just a tree. It’s a spirit! How do you photograph a spirit?’
I knew I had my work cut out when a wonderfully excited lady posed this question to me on a recent workshop in Snowdonia. Me and the group had been wandering the national park already for around six hours when we passed an enchanting looking ancient oak tree. I was pretty keen to get us to the next location in time for a sunset but it seemed as though the tree had spoken to one of the attendees, and she pulled us up to register her interest in answering the call from within. She told me how beautiful she had found the ancient oak to be, standing alone, surrounded by an army of silver birch trees, and wanted to know how she might go about photographing it to tell its’ story.
Upon further investigation, me and the group quickly agreed that it was one of the most striking things that we had seen that day. The sentient oak was standing gracefully just above the track on a rocky outcrop, towering over its’ neighbouring sibling, laden with moss that was looking ever so vibrant in the early spring light, with its’ roots, partially on show, anchoring it to the earth, and its’ branches reaching, twisting and contorting into the vast, empty space above.
As I always do before thinking about the photograph, I patrolled the outskirts of the tree, silencing my mind, seeking connection with the subject. As discussed with the group earlier in the day, this step is vital to my creative process and, only very rarely, will I break out the camera to ‘snap’ a quick photograph before moving on. This connection to my environment, and the chosen subject, is incredibly important to me, much more so than any resulting photograph, as I seek to deepen my love of and connection with ‘Gaia’; the soul and life force of planet earth itself.
Whilst patrolling, I began talking to the group about potential stories to tell of the tree in its’ environment, looking at its’ shape and imagining movements, with imagination and storytelling now being a vital component in my own art. It was during this part of the demonstration that the attendee posed a question that hasn’t stopped circling my mind since that day. The kind of question that goes far beyond the surface level, technical camera jargon, and right into the depths of the art of seeing in photography;
‘How do you photograph a spirit?’
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