Solitary Tree
In my neck of the woods this tree is a bit famous / infamous. It was used in a Rhianna video for the song "I Found Love in a Hopeless Place" and while everyone was thrilled, I wasn't overjoyed as it depicted part of Belfast and Northern Ireland as almost a bit of a war zone. A hopeless place.
Shortly after that I began to visit the tree and this was the first image I took of it. Back then I was all fired up and a member of a photographic body. I entered the image and got a prestigious gold award for it. Of course, those were some of my most "rat-race" type days when what mattered was getting my name 'out there' and establishing a reputation.
But the message of the solitary tree really resonated with me. I returned a few months later for another look.
I was captivated by the tree itself. Not just how it sat in its location, but the character of the tree. Since my crisis of faith began back in the late 1990's I had been spiraling and all the things that kept me grounded and secure just seemed to hold nothing for me. At the time of taking this photograph, I was still there. Something about this tree really grabbed my attention. I likened it to myself and my own life. The only difference was that the tree had no say in where it was planted, or what storms and weather buffeted it. It just stood there and leaned into the chaos. In contrast, most of the problems I was facing were problems of my own making. But as I looked at the tree, I took some comfort in the fact that in the words of Elton John, it was "...still standing, yeh yeh yeh." And I clung to that hope. That's so often all that we can do isn't it? Grit our teeth and just lean in.
Over the years, I would drive past the field where the tree was many times. Each time I would look over at it and examine it as I was speeding past, hoping to pick up subtle changes. You might be lucky, but most of the time, to really see something, it takes time, and it takes slowing down.
The tree is located in a private field belonging to a local farmer. I had the good sense to call them and ask permission to enter the field to photography it, but they told me that hardly anyone ever did. I was glad that I had done the right thing.
So a couple of years later, I returned. Up close I could see subtle little differences but from a distance all looked good. But it still stood against the storms and the rain and hail, soaking up the sun and the rain.
But then something changed. A couple of years ago, we had some really bad storms in the area and I could not believe my eyes, as I drove past. I was shocked and saddened to see the damage that the storms had inflicted on my old friend. This old tree had become a personal statement to me of my own life. Now the storms had changed it irreversibly, forever.
Earlier this week, as I was contemplating this blog post, I started to dig for all of my images of the tree. For me, revisiting photographs is part of my slowing process. Just drinking in the moments, and the memories. When i came to this one, I will have to be honest, I cried. Seeing the change in the old survivor made me reflect on probably one of the hardest years of my life to date and the condition of my own soul and life. I am so much more in a better place now that I was back when I started photographing the Tree in 2013, but getting older has not been an easy acceptance.
And as I just sat in that for a while, I allowed the emotion of what I was looking at wash over me. Maybe this is personal to me and that's why it means so much, but what about you?
Do the photographs that you take move you? Maybe you need to slow things down, simplifying your photography? Your creative process? To just be more mindful in how you shoot and sometimes that means being more deliberate in what you do. And maybe that means planning a bit ahead about what gear you take, (or don't) and asking yourself, "What am I looking for here today? What do I want to get out of this?"
The first photograph was always one of my very favourites? Part of that I suppose was because I had won an award with it. I can admit that now. But if you were to ask me now which of these is my favourite, I would quickly tell you that its the last one and that is because it moves me. It speaks to me. The old tree, it has seen it all, yet despite everything it has faced, it still stretches its arms to Heaven, in an act of worship.
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