Tree Whispers

It all looks very bleak where I have been this week. There is nothing much doing in the fields I normally pass, apart from where the farmer has been cutting hedges (very trying for people on bicycles.)

It has been cold and wet – not so much from hard rain but from the sort of drizzle that allows you to think it will be all right to venture out for a bit of fresh air, but then somehow you realize that it is not only the outer coat that is wet but also all the other lairs of clothing as well.

Birds, squirrels and the odd muntjac are certainly about, and even the moles are moving in to action, but along the lanes near us, the trees are not showing any signs of life -certainly no leaves and very few buds.

 Later in the day seeking solace in my dressing gown (my outfit was in the linen cupboard drying out!) I trawled the internet only to find an article by Drew Reese call “Tree Whispers” – a series of double exposure photographs he published last year about some of the trees he photographed in New Mexico.

Once I dried out a little, I ventured through several lanes where I knew there were trees with which I am very familiar.

Many are quite small and provide me with unusual shapes – in fact I mark the progress of the year by these trees – when the buds are first seen – when the leaves arrive- when they change colour and finally what the autumn wind does to them.

So I began to experiment and to capture images of them using a variety of photographic techniques.

Hope you like some of them – and if not – well there’s always next week.

Stay warm and well.