Island Tree, Welwyn. 14/03/14

14/03/14

From the start of the project I was always looking for an 'island' tree to start the series off, just never finding the right one. I was looking for one in complete isolation, so that when I photographed it, I only got the tree and the surrounding field, I wanted nothing in the background so the focus of the image was completely on the tree and the field it sat in. I tried many many places looking for a tree suitable, but never finding anyway. Until one day when coming home on the train I spotted this tree in a far off field. I was actually on the Welwyn viaduct when I spotted it, so knew roughly where it was and quite annoyed that I had been so close to it before and just not known about it. Well anyway, after spotting it, I decided to go and find it.

The contact sheets from the shoot can be seen below. 

After walking around the village for a while and not finding this field I was about to give up and drive off, but a passing glance as driving away I spotted a small secluded, discreet ally leading between two houses, so I pulled up to have a look. And sure enough it was the right place, and there was the tree sitting at the top of the hill! After looking and looking I was quite relieved to find this location, and it being so close to another shoot location as well.

For this shoot I relied on using the graduated filters, I think I picked one that was a little too strong however, resulting in some of the images being a bit too dark, this was easily adjusted in Photoshop however.

I wanted a single tree to start the series off because it was a simple, subtle element that people don't think twice about. It's just a tree in a field. But its the story behind it that I was after.

There are these island trees all over the place. They are the last remaining tree of a woodland that once stood there before the rest had been cleared away to make room for other things, in this case to make room for fields in the agricultural business. I think this is a great start to a progressive series about man's impact on the environment.

As seen below I did make quite a major change to the image, flipping the path to move the leading line into centre of the image. I did this to draw attention to the tree not away from it. Although this does raise questions whether I should of made changes due to the nature of the project. 

Jaimie Golby