“Let us tell their stories, learn our history and remember the lost possibilities of every life cut short.”
- Governor General of Canada
Trees, recognizable from any perspective for their sturdy trunks and far reaching limbs, are often also a metaphor for strength, kinship and even life itself. Yet, even the hardiest among them are vulnerable to the exploitation of humans. This photographic series reveals the faces of wooded life cut short. Raggedly severed cross sections present as portraits of once majestic trees. Their "faces" expose their lived experience, documenting the passage of time and changing conditions year over year. The "group" images in which white silhouettes seem to speak for their souls, still "alive" and living together in communities.
We came to this photographic project with some degree of guilt and even regret. At the behest of our town, with a building permit in the offing, we removed an outcropping of “non-native” redwood trees. The portraits of trees “cut short” is our tribute to not just the one time inhabitants of our property, but others who fall prey to human dominance and desire.
Beatrice
Olaf
Daisy
Mo
Gemini
Omar
Brandon
Edgar
Thiro
Oprah
Per
Quentin
