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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Eighteen: Light and Landscape – combining personal vision with nature’s gifts > Fallen giant, Hendy Woods State Park, California, 2009
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15-JUN-2009

Fallen giant, Hendy Woods State Park, California, 2009

This park has two groves of old growth coastal redwood trees, hundreds of years old and enormous in scale. I made my most expressive redwood forest landscape photograph of a tree that has fallen and a fern rising from a pool of light next to it. It is not the subject itself that moved me to make this image. It the way light simultaneously abstracts and reveals it. The fallen tree creates a dark diagonal, deep within the shadows. It has been left to gradually decompose, nourishing the soil around it so that new growth such as this lone fern can flourish. One leaf of the fern catches the light, as if in salute the fallen giant behind it. The gradations of light and shadow in this image trace the process of life itself.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1
1/160s f/4.0 at 45.0mm iso100 full exif

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Phil Douglis05-Jul-2009 21:05
That is what I felt as I made this image, Carol. And that is why I said that this photograph traces the process of life itself. Trees die, and their essence nurture other trees that follow. Just as we all hope to leave a legacy that will help nurture those who may follow us.
Carol E Sandgren05-Jul-2009 20:50
Indeed. Such a poignant image of a fallen tree, but the light patch beside it offers remembrance and hope for a new tree to be born in its place.
Phil Douglis05-Jul-2009 00:09
Thanks, Tim -- the more abstract an image becomes, the greater latitude we have for expression. I saw the gradations of light and shadow tracing the cyclical nature of life itself, while you see the glow as representing peace and hope. There is room for both interpretations here, and more.
Tim May04-Jul-2009 19:49
An image of peace and hope.
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