Steffe
That Old Tree
There’s a tree on a narrow path that winds its way through a field outside of Tungelsta, a subdivision of the municipality of Haninge, just south of Stockholm, Sweden. It’s a whitebeam tree; they’re considered unremarkable by most botanists. They’re tough old trees, whitebeams. Before the introduction of iron, the wood of the whitebeam was used to make handles for tools and cogs for gears. The tree’s name comes from its leaves, the undersides of which are nearly white. In a strong wind, the origin of the whitebeam’s name becomes obvious.
Christmas day, 2005. That’s when Stefan Jansson first photographed this particular whitebeam. Since that day Steffe has posted more than 300 photographs of that tree on flickr. We’ve seen it in snow, and in rain and fog. We’ve seen it in the company of men and women, horses and carts. We’ve seen it leafless and in full bloom. It took some damage in a storm just over a year ago, but for the most part the tree remains unchanged.
There’s something both comforting and remarkable about all this. It’s comforting to know that trees live and die on a scale radically different from that of humans, to know that the tree you see in this photograph will almost certainly be standing there by that path for generations after I’ve died. And it’s remarkable that during my lifetime I’ve come to know and recognize a specific whitebeam tree on a path I’ve never trod outside a town I’ve never seen in a nation I’ve never visited.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, greg fallis and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
