Last flame
- 📍 Location: Forest of Rambouillet, Gambais, Yvelines, France
- 📅 Date: 2024
The wood had already turned over. Every tree was bare, the ground was a flat brown carpet, and the whole scene had settled into the grey-brown that lasts from November until March. One young tree in the middle of it was still fully in leaf, and burning orange.
I framed it dead centre, which I almost never do. Here the symmetry is the argument: the picture is about one thing being different from everything around it, and putting it anywhere else would have weakened the isolation.
The exposure is held down so the litter and the trunks stay dark and muted. The small tree is the only saturated object in the frame, and I did nothing to bring the rest up to meet it. A photograph about a single exception should not be generous to the rule.
There is something slightly comic about a tree that has not noticed the season is over, and something moving about it too. I stood there longer than the picture needed, mostly because I did not want to walk away from the last colour in the forest.
Limited-edition fine-art print from the Skywaven Studios collection, available in several sizes, papers and framing options.
