Forest Photographs

Poetical Photographs

Whilst thinking about  the many forms poetry can take, I took this series of images, then edited them to achieve a painterly effect. What first attracted me to this seen was the way the street lamps glowed amongst the branches, illuminating the foliage. The composition produces an air of mystery,  that guides your eye down the path and into the wooded darkness.

  

In my head, I started to recall the wood to the nursery rhythm, 'If you go down to the woods today'. However as I looked into trees, my mind conjured up a more sinister version...

" If you go down to the woods today, be sure of a big surprise.

If you go down to the wood today, you'd better believe you eyes,

For every psycho murdering thugs' not gathering round to give you a hug,

Today's the day the cannibals eat your entrails. "

This rendition started me thinking about the importance of song to relay important messages, For hundreds of years people have been using catchy tunes to house warnings of other important messages, in order to make them easier to remember ( particular for children. ) 

The misty shadows of the images, facilitates a dialogue between the layers of light and the playful gestural nature of the branches as the perform a ballet-like dance. A sense of movement is somewhat captured here,  through contrast and context, bringing a theatrical note that is essential to the undercurrent of  the image.

This last image is particularly charged with metaphorical significance, and conjures up images of jack and the bean stalk as we see this gigantic tree disappearing unto the heavens, the quality of the light adds a dream like state to the image, the branches appear like the steps of Jacobs ladder ( A Biblical story) Or the tower of babel - stating that the people of the earth decided that they would build a ladder up to the heavens, in order to be at one with god, several groups of people started building, and they were communicating so well that the ladders grow higher and higher, when they reached an inordinate height God looked down from the heavens and saw the people climbing  up the ladders, This angered God, and he tore the ladders down. As a punishment for not knowing there place, and challenging the authority of the Lord, He changed the languages of the people from one tongue to many, knowing that this would set there communication skills back for thousands of years to come, thus stopping them from being able to communicate effectively enough to build another gigantic ladder.