The quiet divide

The quiet divide. 2020.

A small tree holds its ground beneath a sky that takes almost everything for itself. The frame is mostly cloud and air, thick with soft greys and faint blues, while the land runs as a thin green band along the bottom, cut by a textured strip of grass that leads the eye toward the lone figure on the hill. I liked the way the scene feels both fragile and calm, as if the tree is a single thought trying to stay upright under the weight of the weather. This photograph sits between emptiness and detail, using space, scale and that quiet diagonal of land to turn an ordinary paddock into a slow, breathing pause.

125 mm • f/5.6 • 1/800 sec, ISO 160