There is no doubt the forest is suffering. Many familiar groves and well-trodden paths have become almost unrecognizable and there have been moments when I thought myself lost on the tracks I wander regularly. Instead of dark and dense witchwood forests there are light-flooded wastelands.
It is a time of change, of paradigms shifting. These changes are neccessary and inevitable, but it’s a sad thing to witness.
I use photography as a tool and method to make sense of the world around and inside me. It helps me to solidify my thoughts and emotions on certain topics and experiences. Thus it is probably no wonder that many of my current photos have become somewhat darker and less focussed. There’s a sense of confusion, loss and danger that crept from my surroundings into my work.
Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say
What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,
Which in the very thought renews the fear.
So bitter is it, death is little more;
But of the good to treat, which there I found,
Speak will I of the other things I saw there.
I cannot well repeat how there I entered,
So full was I of slumber at the moment
In which I had abandoned the true way.
But after I had reached a mountain’s foot,
At that point where the valley terminated,
Which had with consternation pierced my heart,
Upward I looked, and I beheld its shoulders,
Vested already with that planet’s rays
Which leadeth others right by every road.
Then was the fear a little quieted
That in my heart’s lake had endured throughout
The night, which I had passed so piteously.
~Dante Alighieri Inferno, Canto I~
