April 2021
Roots
As a nature-loving person I choose to live in a rural area of Sweden amongst an abundance of forest, coastal countryside and natural wildlife. For the last 8 years my art has centred on black and white film photography using vintage cameras, with experimental home development and printing methods.
Nature herself drew me in to capture this image, the majestic but gnarly old oak glistened in the evening light each time I passed, imploring me to understand and know her better. Eventually, venturing out with a 1950's medium-format camera only a young fraction of her age, I committed some of her beauty to silver film.
Developing film is a satisfying yet crucially sensitive step in the artistic workflow of film photography. An accomplished photographer expects that negatives will have developed cleanly and without major surprises. Once in a while however, a negative emerges that stands out larger and more important than expected, and so it was with the oak tree.
Sitting in my darkroom with the projected 6x6 negative as the only illumination, I found myself in a trance of nature's beauty and complexity. Viewed up or down, left or right, each perspective evoked fresh yet ancient fractal insights into this tree of life. I sat for hours and emerged from the darkroom with neither a paper print nor the need for one.
'Roots' is offered as a high-resolution (4k x 4k) digital NFT scan of an enthralling and moving natural image in black and white. She stands alone as a representative of nature's essential complexity and life-bearing motherhood, both above and below the ground. May we long respect and preserve her and her kin.
