Last breath
- 📍 Location: Tomb of Merlin, Brocéliande forest, Brittany, France
- 📅 Date: 2021
Late sun was coming in low through the trunks and there was enough dust and pollen in the air for the beam to become visible: a solid diagonal of light crossing the clearing and landing on the ground beside the stones.
I placed the boulder in the lower left and let the beam run across the frame towards it. The composition has only two elements, a mass and a line, and I framed to keep it that way; another tree in the foreground would have made it a woodland scene rather than an event.
The tones are warm and slightly hazy because the air genuinely was. Shooting into a low sun at a narrow angle raises the blacks and drops the contrast, and rather than correcting that I let the whole picture sit in a brown-gold that matches the hour.
This is a place people leave notes and small offerings at, and it was busy earlier in the day. I waited until the last visitors left. The photograph is of an empty clearing with a shaft of light in it, which seemed a better kind of respect than photographing the ritual.
Limited-edition fine-art print from the Skywaven Studios collection, available in several sizes, papers and framing options.
