I have been researching mindfulness and photography recently looking for ideas to develop my practice. I came across Kim Grant's video One Tree, Three Lenses, Two Hours and really enjoyed the way in which she created a range of images by spending time alone with just one tree. A really meditative, deep experience.
After many dull grey February days, we had an unexpected afternoon of sun, and I decided to put this idea into practice. Too late in the day to go out, I chose to focus on the silver birch in our front garden. I see this tree every morning when I draw the curtains to welcome in the day. I pass it every time I go in and out of the house. It is part of my life. But how well do I really know it? As Mario Testino commented “My favourite words are possibilities, opportunities and curiosity. If you are curious, you create opportunities, and if you open the doors, you create possibilities.”
So I wrapped myself up warm, opened the front door and looked for possibilites. I initially left the camera in its bag, while I spent time just looking and feeling the tree, getting to know it better.
Each of the 4 trunks is unique, with scars where branches had been pruned. I suddenly realised the human interference. "Does the tree in its quiet moments look down at itself and notice the damage, the loss, the scars of experience, in the way that humans do?" asks my partner as we look together at the tree.
The dappled bark was peeling with an endless array of patterns and shapes, shedding and revealing, discarding the unnecessary layers. As we age we shed pleasures, burdens, relationships.
The ripples and ruffles of the bark intrigued me, with the shadows creating new perspectives as I moved around. We shed memories too. We forget things, even if once the experience was a shining joy.
As I spent more time with this tree in a mindful way, I thought of Margaret Soraya's comment: "When I go out and photograph, I get completely lost. My mind is emptied and I fully concentrate on noticing." I got lost into the flow, loving the blue of the sky and the light shining on the bark after so, so many grey winter days:
Spending time mindfully observing, listening and feeling this tree became quite an intimate experience. As Cartier Bresson said: “It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera… they are made with the eye, heart, and head.”
And just as suddenly as it appeared, the sun went behind a looming bank of grey cloud. My time was up. I retreated inside, and with a warming cup of tea, spent some time writing down what I had learnt about this tree, continuing with a mindful approach I played with some poetry:
The silvery-white bark
With orange peelings
Gleaming in sharp winter sun rays
Elegant branches
Thinning into the chill
Bearing the buds
and catkins
of Spring-coming.
And I found this poem by Robert Frost that seems to fit here:
Robert Frost
The Sound of Trees
I wonder about the trees.
Why do we wish to bear
Forever the noise of these
More than another noise
So close to our dwelling place?
We suffer them by the day
Till we lose all measure of pace,
And fixity in our joys,
And acquire a listening air.
They are that that talks of going
But never gets away;
And that talks no less for knowing,
As it grows wiser and older,
That now it means to stay.
My feet tug at the floor
And my head sways to my shoulder
Sometimes when I watch trees sway,
From the window or the door.
I shall set forth for somewhere,
I shall make the reckless choice
Some day when they are in voice
And tossing so as to scare
The white clouds over them on.
I shall have less to say,
But I shall be gone.
Further reading: Mindful Photography
Margaret Soraya: Photography and Mindfulness as Therapy
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