Notes and Images from a Small Island (Practice 6 Day 7)

The lifeless skies remain as I head out to produce a photographic study of the lone silver birch tree that I have photographed many times before.  I am planning an exercise in attention and given the weather conditions I think it may be a day for intentional camera movement.  How does it feel to be the tree on a miserable day like today?  I think about words that describe the tree – brave, strong, resilient, courageous and bold.

I start with a tripod, but soon revert to single shots rather than multiple exposure and start waving my camera around.  The images are almost monochrome with the deep black basalt of the Cuillin shrouded in mist.  I struggle again with inspiration.  But as I work, I hear the bellow of rutting deer in the nearby hills and see the outline of a large stag, clear against the white sky.  I also hear the call of a shepherd tending his sheep.

It is a drippy, misty and still day.  There is no movement in the tree canopy.  My first images attempt to capture the tree and the watercolour aesthetic I am looking for gives the impression that the image runs off the bottom of the image.  The movement of the camera also gives a mystical quality to the Black Cuillin in the background.

I focus on the tree canopy – the leaves have gone beyond their autumnal peak, but I am surprised how dense it still is.  The white skies peep through the canopy as I work.

As the weather closes in, I return to taking the outline of the tree against the Cuillin and as I pack up after my morning’s work the rain starts to fall.