Reaching Volume I

This project is a fine art form-based photographic nature study focusing on the ways trees and tree parts physically reach into the above-ground spaces in which they live. It primarily examines the wonderful organic shapes of trees and tree parts, and how they interact to create interesting formal relationships.
The plentiful supply of public parks and trails within a 30-minute radius of my home in Tallahassee, Florida, provided the subjects. My love of the forest and my desire to gain visual acuity with its organic shapes provided the motivation.
The methodology involved walking the forest trails and park fields mostly during morning and late afternoon hours, near sunrise and sunset, and searching for interesting formal relationships or scenarios. Initially, the approach was a continuation of my solo tree portrait work, which was guided by a vision of seeking out isolated trees. A particular icon that influenced this first phase of the methodology was of a human forearm and hand reaching to the sky clutching a chicken drumstick. As the project progressed into more enclosed spaces under the forest canopy, my approach evolved to include an expanded use of different formal concepts like space and line, with shapes interacting and weaving in layers, entering the image from all sides of the frame. One iconic shape that repeatedly appeared and was used in composition, was that of the bronchial tubes of the human lung or the fan-like shape of a tree’s root system. The methodology has focused on exploring how these line shapes, and these twisting and curling fan-like shapes, interacted with each other, the sky, and the frame to enhance visual flow. Additionally, I aimed at creating a wee-bit of tension with formal relationships not dependent on a level horizon or traces of ground.
Several photographers fueled my creative inspiration: Robert Llewellyn, Peter Essick, Lizzie Shepard, Chuck Hemard, Eliot Porter, Sean Kernan, William Eggleston, and Richard Misrach, among others. 
The project is presented as 18, 8” x 12” (9 x 13 with white border) archival pigment color prints inside 13.5″ x 17.5″ black oak box frames under museum glass with 2” warm white mats on Hahnemühle William Turner Photo Rag.