King of the forest
- 📍 Location: Hindré oak, Brocéliande forest, Brittany, France
- 📅 Date: 2021
A step back from the tree, and the subject changes. From here the oak is one dark presence among many trunks, and what the picture is about is the wood around it: a crowd of tall bare stems, a low fence, and the space between them.
I framed wide and kept the horizon of the ground low, so the verticals run the full height of the image. Repeated lines like these need something to break them; the fence does it, cutting across at knee height and giving the eye a horizontal to rest on.
Monochrome again, and here it does something different from the closer frame: with the colour gone, the trunks in the distance fade by tone alone, and the depth of the wood becomes measurable. You can count the ranks of trees receding.
The title is his due, but the picture is deliberately less reverent than the close one. A king in his forest is still standing in a wood with everyone else, and I liked photographing him at the distance from which that is obvious.
Limited-edition fine-art print from the Skywaven Studios collection, available in several sizes, papers and framing options.
