Trees

In the latest Landscape Photography Magazine competition, it is either a single tree or a small group of trees. This is the latest in their competition and . I am writing this entry for several reasons. The first being that I want to post my favorite on my web site which may not be published by them because it has a couple of horses in it and technically that is not since images cannot contain animal or humans. For a subject like a tree, I think this is uniquely unfair as trees are perhaps one of the most important element on earth and they take care of or support a vast array of animals and humans. Here is what I wrote for this image above:

I know this image does not necessarily subscribed to the standards for submissions, with two horses in the image which I could have easily removed, but the image needs these elements  to lend a perspective to the size of cottonwood tree and to complete the narrative of the tree and what it contributes to its surroundings.

 Images don’t have to be nice presentations but they do need to be more able to tell a story. The story here is what the tree gives back. One person claimed that trees are the “background of a favorite memory and its welcome patch of green our eyes retain….While they are silent and stationary, trees hold tremendous powers, including the power to make all our lives better and healthier.”  Here, it is not just a tree standing alone along a wheat field, it is a bulk work providing shelter from the harsh August sun. Presumably, it provides shelter to many forms of bird life, owls, falcons, or eagles. Then there are the, bats, snakes, frogs, earthworms, rabbits or foxes. One could say a tree is perhaps one of the most important elements in our environment.

This image is from Eastern Washington, the Palouse area taken on one of my rare August visits.

As a footnote to this image, I was curious how old this tree was since it is comes across as quite tall when compared to the two horses under it. From the image, I have a rough calculation of around 150 to 180 years old. (Dimeter of the tree 4.5 ft above the ground and the type of tree, Black Cottonwood). This make the tree being planted/grown around 1850, when the Palouse area was first settled and dry land farming took off. So this lonely cottonwood has stood watch over horses and who knows what else for say 170 years. Just down the road from this cottonwood is a farm, perhaps the kids and or early farmers took pleasure under this tree…….

This was my first submission. I chose it because it is unique and most likely no one sent along an image of a lone Aspen at the bottom of a large “weathering pit.” Who knew! to submit the image I need to do a little geological research on the area and was advised that these large depressions are not pot holes, but pits formed from the swirling winds that work away and to loose sandstone over tremendous lengths of time. This area is in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument at a place called Dance Hall Rock. Interestingly it gets its name from a very large sandstone rock with an amphitheater in it with great acoustics that Mormon pioneers in the 1880 used for their dances.

This was the second image I wanted to submit and it is another image that tells a story, but a complete different one, as it conveys the mood and the feeling of where this tree stands, in the corner of the Antietam National Battlefield, which is located just outside of Sharpsburg, Maryland. The tree stands at the entrance to the Momma Farm graveyard. (It does not contain any Civil War solders from the Antietam Battle.)

On September 17, 1862 approximately 75,000 Union solders under the command George McClellan intercepted the invading 55,000 Confederate troops under the command of Robert E.  Lee outside the town of Sharpsburg  Maryland at Antietam Creek. The fighting began at dawn and continued throughout the day until the guns fell silent at around 6 pm. They had fought themselves into a standstill with General Lee pulling his troops out that night and retreating south. This day would end up being the Deadliest one Day Battle in US History with an estimated 22,717 Union and Confederate casualties. For comparison, less than ½ of this number of Allied troops were lost on the Normandy Beaches on June 6, 1944. The Union victory at Antietam, if one calls it that, allowed President Lincoln to publish a preliminary draft of his Emancipation Proclamation.

The image was taken on a quasi sunny day in February and it conveys the haunting feeling I felt when we visited Antietam on our way to Washington DC from Chambersburg PA.

This was my second actual submission. A rather art deco-ish image from the Palouse again. I think the tree got hit by lighting standing at the top of that ridge as it has dead stuff in the middle and looks ragtag and split.

Here are my last two tree images. The first of a tree in the Mt Vernon, Washington tulip fields I did not submit because I added the clouds in. post processing and the other of a Joshua Tree that I like but just some how did not work.