Vascular
Trees have been a regular subject for my photography over the years. The twisting interlocking forms and the variation of scale from the weighty sturdiness of the trunk to the threadlike finer outer branches has near infinite potential for photography. It became evident to me whilst witnessing some trees lit by festive lights that the red, glowing leafless outer branches shared a very similar form to the vascular system of the human body, the larger arteries and veins giving way to the smaller blood vessels and capillaries. These blood red branches set against the darkening blue of the winter sky gave me the impression that I was viewing the blood vessels and capillaries inside my own eye and this gave birth to an idea, create a series of images that give the impression of being shot inside the human eye, as though witnessing at a macro level the blood vessels and capillaries inside the eye itself. I decided to shoot after sun down when the sky had a darker, more translucent quality. Utilising a flash and red gel allowed me to illuminate the trees with a deep red light. This also separated them from the sky and landscape behind and removed as much of their original colour and dimensional reference and give a stronger blood vessel appearance. As the project has progressed I’ve also found that shooting the images out of focus further enhances this fluid like look and gives a deeper image bringing them closer to the original concept as I envisaged.
A small selection of images are presented below with more images to follow as I continue to work on this project.
