Steffe
That Old Tree
When we first put that old tree on the Front Page in February 2013, Stefan’s project had been going for seven years. He’d taken over 300 photos.
Now he has an album of over 400 photos. There is the tree in snow, on sunny days, in mist and rain. It’s a collection, but not in the sense of a stamp collection or a stuffed animal collection. Through these photos of that old tree, we glimpse some of the life pulsing through the place — we see horseriders, walkers. Now and then Stefan’s bicycle appears. We are left to imagine the rare and unique bryphytes and lichens that may live on the branches of the tree, the tiny invertebrates that inhabit the splits in the bark and wounds where the tree has succumbed to a storm.
We follow the seasons with that old tree, inhabiting the Swedish countryside through Stefan’s eyes as the greens of spring and summer give way to the burnished tones of autumn and the white of winter snow.
It is a reminder of the passage of time, how history repeats itself. How some things change irreconcilably while others stay the same. There is a continuum, and just like that old tree, we are on it.
(Take some time to read greg’s original front page post. And don’t forget to while away a rainy hour by viewing the entire sequence of photos.)
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, Debra Broughton and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
