2012, Silver print, 30 x 40 inches

I, too, live in the company of trees, in the south-west of England. The way I work constantly changes, but these pictures were made close to home, in the conventional analogue manner, using a large format field camera, a negative, and printing in a darkroom (in Maine). It is my experience of the forest that I am left uncertain - of orientation, taxonomy and time; often overwhelmed by the multitude, its relations and apparent ceaselessness of activity. However, I enjoy this state of doubt and unknowing, and the excitement sets my imagination to play. The most apposite way of translating this emotion was by making multiple exposures, building a composite image on the negative, without knowledge of how it would come out. I prefer to understand the landscape as the point of departure, rather than the destination: these pictures, therefore, are not an imitation, but rather a parallel of reality, creating an ambiguous surface which tilts the relationship between firm ground and suggested form. An idea of the forest happening. JS