MOTHER NATURE

“The earth is my sister; I love her daily grace, her silent daring, and how loved I am how we admire the strength in each other, all that we have lost, all that we have suffered, all that we know; we are stunned by this beauty, and I do not forget: what she is to me, what I am to her.”

Susan Griffin

 

“pay closer attention not only to what you see but also to what you feel, not only to the image outside the book but also to the affect inside yourself” – Nidesh Lawtoo

I am sitting on an iron chair, at a stone table, outdoors, in front of an olive grove on the island in the Adriatic where I have been returning every summer for the past three years.

It’s August, around 1pm. The day is windless, the sea is dead calm, I am bored and my camera is staring at me, hoping to be taken for a tour among the olive trees. And so we go.

As we scan the trees, the camera suggests surface patterns from different angles, distances, focal lengths, their motionless motifs only very occasionally disturbed by tiny crawlers, hunting or hiding. The intense summer light carving deep shadows into the bark.

I take a few shots and keep adjusting frame and depth of field, digitizing textures. It’s just practice, basic training, I doubt I’m going to get anything really interesting out of this session.

Then somehow something magical happens.

A tree person, perhaps the most daring one, reveals herself.

She emerges in the background of yet another texture.

I have to look at the screen three or four times, over and over again, to really take in the discovery.

Hello there! What a surprise!

Are you alone?

Of course not. The grove is full of tree people.

Silent, still, they are all there.

Under the bright sun. Hiding in plain sight, invisible until they decide to reveal themselves.

As I take their portraits, I cannot help but marvel at how much their skin resembles ours.

Then they begin to tell their stories. Some I recognize. Some I could have lived myself.

Some are about a beautiful, calm, self-confident life under the full sun.

Others are about suffering, pain and loss.

The memory of a 10 metre high wild olive tree resurfaces. None of these people will ever grow like that.

I continue to take photographs, but somehow I feel that these people are on their way away.

They visited, but now it’s time to say goodbye.

I no longer hear stories, I just take pictures. And the more pictures I take, the more uncomfortable I feel.

So I cap the lens.