Crooked oak
- 📍 Location: Faux de Verzy, Montagne de Reims, France
- 📅 Date: 2022
The trees in this wood do not grow upward. They twist, double back, run horizontally for several metres and then turn again, and this oak is among the most contorted of them. I placed it slightly left of centre so the long reaching limb has somewhere to go.
The ferns are the reason the picture works. They had just opened, an almost fluorescent green, and they fill the entire lower third with a soft even mass. Against that softness the dark twisted wood reads as drawing: line against texture, which is the oldest trick there is and still the best one.
I worked in flat light under the canopy, with no direct sun anywhere in the frame. These trees are almost impossible in hard light; the branches cast a chaos of shadow on each other and the shape disappears. Overcast lets the silhouette stay legible, which is all this subject ever needed.
People come to this wood to see trees that grow the wrong way, and after ten minutes among them the strangeness stops being a curiosity and becomes the normal condition of the place. I wanted a frame that felt more curious than picturesque: a portrait of one tree, at the height a person walking past would see it.
Limited-edition fine-art print from the Skywaven Studios collection, available in several sizes, papers and framing options.
