Trees
A beautiful book of photographs by Ansel Adams.
Trees are the subject of much folklore and Ive been gathering lots of branches and drift wood on my travels. I'm working closely with wood bark and branches I'm really noticing the detail and textures of Trees so I particularly like the photographs of the details of the bark.
This book of photographs by Ansel Adams is a homage to trees, from the deserts of New Mexico to Yosemite valley its a a portrait of the trees of the American west.It includes snippets of literature to accompany the images by writers, poets and historians who draw inspiration from the mystical and meditative nature of trees and expands the meaning of the image by pulling together many philosophical musings and environments.
The photographs are all black and white yet catch so much atmosphere that my minds eye sees them in colour, from the dry, heat of he scorched bark of Mexican desert trees, summer canopies in full leaf to winter sunlight on snow heavy branches.
Its a really varied collection, and makes you think what a huge subject trees are in terms of natural history as well as human history, belief and folk lore a reminder of that long human connection with trees and the tradition and superstition that surrounds them and how we make sense of our own lives through these visible cycles of nature.
Here the artist pulls together his own actual creative vision of the physical tree along with choice texts that express his deeper interest and research into the subject. Its a very accessible outcome for the viewer with space for your own imaginings.
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Majesty
"Dean’s methodology is a combination of idea-driven research with an openness to chance, accident, coincidence and poetic associations which she allows to direct her processes. She has explained what drew her to ‘old and deformed trees’ in an interview with the novelist Jeffrey Eugenides:
I made a photograph for an edition for October magazine recently called Fontainebleau Postcard, and I had to phone them up to check the title, and it reminded me that I had found all these old postcards of The Forest of Fontainebleau when I was in Kitakyushu in Japan, and I remember thinking that’s so strange, why would they have so many postcards of Fontainebleau? And then I went onto the internet and I looked up the Forest of Fontainebleau, which lead me to the famous oak of Fontainebleau, which in turn led me to look up old oak trees and then the oldest of trees in England, the yew tree. Before I knew it, the tiny village where I grew up came up as the place where there once was a 1400-year old yew tree. I always need that tiny thread to get myself going."
I identify quite a bit with her approach to interpretation of historical research and leaving room in her practice for chance, or intuitive exploration.
I think this is a really visually stunning works, and it goes deeper than its surface, looking at a tree as an ancient monument, spiritual reference, physical adapting the image to draw focus on the one character of the visual story.
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