Sentinels

It's the notion of what exists beyond the obvious that calls to us and draws us in.

I have several photos of trees I call Sentinels. They stood in the overgrown borderland of our property in Northern New York, stately and tall, strong, protective, and watchful. In reality, they long since gave up the ghost, no longer pushing spring buds, or sporting summer leafy finery, no longer dressing up for fall in colors of russet or gold. Instead, woody arteries and capillaries split and branched skyward from bleached and peeling trunks. No breath, no rustle of veined leaves in the Northern New York breezes, no running of sap in the Spring, no reaching for artesian springs in the depths of the earth.

Yet, I counted on them, backdrop to green fields and snow drifts, foreground to woods of autumn wonder, tracery of limbs like stained glass framing sunrise skies or rising from early morning mist. I counted on them to frame, to counter, to capture, to rise, to be.

I have a friend who likens photography to literature. It is the process of finding and defining characters, of telling a story of light, and shape, line and space.

I believe the Sentinels have a story.