View allAll Photos Tagged SKELETONTREE
For several months while and after my relationship was breaking down i did a project at this eerie location in Porlock Bay, as a much needed distraction and fill the long evenings!
It's not the easiest of shoots because the highest tides to capture the full reflections flood the access paths, as well as the old ruined barn and skeleton trees.
The much photographed dead trees are the result of a breech in the shingle bank, which acted as a sea defense; the repeated brine soakings killing from the root-stock upwards over the course of 20 years.
To anyone reading this experiencing relationship break down -- don't hit the bottle, just head for the stars, armed with your camera! (More night shoots to come...)
f/6.3
14 mm
25 second exposure
ISO 100
Manual exposure with 2 second timer
The Dead Tree
Kordan, Danson, Wallace, Dros and Dom Haughton (to name but a few) have all been here before to pave the path for many others to follow. Each in his own style, composition and artistic vision, all have taken beautiful and inspiring images. The dead tree is situated just off the trail leading towards Pico Ruivo, Madeira, in a section strewn with dead shrubs and trees that shine like silver jewels under the sun. I was so proud and lucky to get there, certainly under great conditions
I'm not a bird photographer but this little chap was tweeting furiously - and I love Robins.
Luckily zoom lens was in place whilst he waiting for the shot ... then tweeted again before flying off.
There are a growing number of trees dying in paddocks around Tasmania, and this one is in a tree graveyard in the Central Highlands is just a few kilometres from Great Lake. You would not think water would be an issue.
But, there is no evidence that fire has caused these tree deaths (and in fact we'll see the regenerative qualities of fire in my photos tomorrow). Salinity is not a problem in Tasmania as far as I know, although on the mainland of Australia rising levels of salinity is killing trees.
No, the problem here appears to be simply a lack of water under the ground to feed the root systems.
I've borrowed the title here from Aussie artist Nick Cave's superbly dark album "Skeleton Tree". But the lyrics of "Anthrocene" on the same album might be more appropriate:
"Sunday morning, skeleton tree
Pressed against the sky
The jittery TV
Glowing white like fire
And I called out, I called out
Right across the sea
I called out, I called out
That nothing is for free"
by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Marble Canyon after a wildfire raged here many years ago. Want to know more? See my preceding photo.
In 2003 there was a wildfire in Marble Canyon, and 11 years later this is what the place looked like: dead mature trees, but a vivid green undergrowth of young trees are brightening up the place!
This photo was taken from the viewing platform over Marble Canyon waterfall in Kootenay NP (see one of my previous photos). Here you can see the wild and winding water of Tokkum Creek just before it plunges down.
A few tree skeletons remain standing in a meadow years after a fire swept through removing the brush
I had the chance to see Nick Cave's recent film One More Time With Feeling exploring loss and creativity, philosophy and grief, music and humanity not too long ago at The Music Box Theater in Chicago. It was a difficult film to watch in many ways but well worth watching.
**All photos are copyrighted. Please don't use without permission**
l'albero invernale,nudo, senza foglie, esibisce la stessa struttura della nervatura posseduta dalle sue foglie (quando le aveva) ... lo stesso vale per la struttura delle sue radici: perfetto esempio di frattale in natura...
...faint green glow just above the horizon centre right.
Picture taken at 23:29 hrs on Monday night from a country lane just north west of York.
I pointed my camera due north and hoped for the best!
The clouds on the left of the image are being illuminated by the Moon
Part I
An amazing photoshoot with www.facebook.com/arcfrostcosplay.
I would love if someone could give me constructive criticism about this image. Any suggestions would be rad !!
Although I've been home for two weeks I've had close to no motivation to work on anything. Maybe it's the opioids or school. Always sleeping. Although I am slowly becoming more motivated now :)
Nick Cave's Birthday is Friday but, well, it is already Friday in Brighton, England where he lives and in Australia where he comes from. This Nick Cave is the Bad Seed lead, the masterful performer not to be confused with the performance artist Nick Cave from America who I photographed a performance of earlier this week. Life is so confusing!
**All photos are copyrighted. Please don't use without permission**
I remember a puzzle my dad used to challenge us to solve when we were kids: "You're locked in a room with no windows, just two doors; one door leads to freedom and the other leads to prison. In front of each door, is a guard - one of the guards always tells lies and the other only ever tells the truth. You're allowed to ask just one of the guards a single question in order to determine which of the two doors leads to freedom so you can walk through it and be free. But what question do you ask - and of which guard - in order to find the correct door that leads to freedom?"
And your time starts........now!...... www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2dhD9zR6hk
Ok my last one from the archive and not as good as the original www.flickr.com/photos/eddieelm/8427474091/ but worth uploading especially as my reserves are empty. Dublin tomorrow though where I will attempt some street photography!
Have you seen the movie The Truman Show? Such a wild concept, with the main character growing up in a studio made to look like the real world, with full time actors making him think it's all real, when it's actually for a reality TV show. It's quite entertaining! He says the same thing throughout the movie, "Good morning! And in case I don't see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!"
With that in mind, here's my truman show series, I guess. We start off with a sunrise shot of my fave big tree around us, in my neighbor's yard. A mighty oak!
Magnificent oak tree at the entrance to the arboretum with the moon as a bonus. Enchanted Christmas 2019 at Westonbirt. Old Arboretum. Westonbirt Arboretum, South Gloucestershire, England.
The Mundon Oaks are a group of 'Petrified' Oaks near the village of Mundon in Essex. Access is not as easy as it use to be and the Farmer has now put an electrified fence round with alarms and CCTV......
I appear to have captured two meteors falling together (at the top of the picture).Please note this is a single image.
Taken at Poppleton North Yorkshire UK
It was an exquisite 55-degree December Sunday, so I took my dog Kovacs to the last dog day of the year at the #MortonArboretum. Third time now that we’ve run into a coyote when I’ve been there with my dog. We backed up slowly under its unblinking stare; I’m sure it didn’t want confrontation, just making sure we retreated, but I was a bit nervous being there after that.
The moon rising through a skeleton tree silhouette - viewed at the top of Dunraven Pass in Yellowstone National Park. The sky is pinked up from the setting sun.
© Katie LaSalle-Lowery
The Top Ten Albums of 2016
I always miss a few great releases and you'll all have to forgive me. Though I listen to music constantly, I like to revisit old favorites as much as I like to discover new music. This is one woman's adventures into new music this year for the time being and I will always discover great albums after the fact inevitably. This year has been amazing because it's brought about so many female fronted bands in particular. I've often for some reason been more drawn to male vocals overall even though there are many female artists I love...perhaps I am changing or perhaps the female artists are changing. I did want to say something about the newest Nick Cave album, Skeleton Tree. It's definitely worth listening to and the documentary One More Time With Feeling is Devastating and powerful...but, I prefer the documentary to the album. I love some songs on the album though and I think if you have suffered a huge loss of life in your recent experiences, it might give you some solace. Other songs, I just couldn't connect with unfortunately at this point in my life. The great thing about music is that, as we grow and grieve, the music will be there to comfort us. And, even if all of the electricity goes out and we have nothing left, while we're eating that last can of beans at the end of the world, we'll still have the memory of those familiar comforting voices and the words we learned by heart.
1. Savages: Adore Life
Sometimes, you listen to an album, and it doesn't quite transfer in a live setting. Having seen Savages twice this year on tour, I can only adore life and this band's music more. Lead singer Jehnny Beth or Camille Berthomier is absolutely on fire on album and live. Every breath released isn't an exhalation but an exclamation of every cell in her strong agile frame. She's an absolutely emphatic vision and these tracks hit heavy but deliver the kind of sweet release that live up to a sort of promise to keep up a certain challenge in this day and age, making something creative, vital, and thrilling. If you are a fan of the band's previous release, Silence Yourself, you'll find this one picks up in many ways where that one left off but, in turn, also goes farther and delivers a more satisfying group of songs overall.
Watch official videos on youtube here: www.youtube.com/user/SAVAGESBANDLONDON
Band's website here: savagesband.com/
2. Jenny Hval: Blood Bitch
If you're familiar with Jenny Hval's work, I don't have to tell you she's a little strange. In fact, over time, you kind of expect the unexpected and each new release has you wondering what she'll do next. Even more bizarre is beholding her and her band in concert, which really strangles the tightrope of musical production and performance art. Hval comes to us from Norway, though, and they can be a little more creative there with even government support many times, which must be refreshing (we can live like this in America too and encourage our artists but it will take a great deal of work to get there). Hval is more than a curiosity...she's talented and she can somehow be meek and fierce at the same time. She creates something intangible yet at times also catchy and even farther with notes of vulnerability. There is guaranteed no other album this year that came out like this one and well worth repeated listens. She might be female vampire of sorts but she's much more like Line Landersson or Eli in the Swedish film Let the Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in) in that she's easy to fall in love with and want to keep in your life while you still have it.
Official site: jennyhval.com/
Female Vampire video: vimeo.com/170495827
3. Loscil: Monument Builders
Canada's Scott Morgan is the inspiration behind a number of amazing albums. The latest, Monument Builders is a careful and complex release that deserves to be taken note of. It reminds me at times of my feelings of despair at the end of the world and yet there is much solace to be find here. At other times, it possesses an emotional complexity that I find myself getting lost in and actually allows me more than any other album right now to give up on my internal monologue and actually come close to meditation. It's difficult not to have visions after hearing these captivating songs and seeing Loscil perform at Constellation in Chicago was one of this year's highlights in terms of live performances for me. The re-occurrent themes I am probably reading into it is the feeling of loss and recovery, of coping with a world half empty, despondent, and quite lost too...good to have a wordless wonder to express this when I don't quite have the words myself to express my own grief sometimes.
Loscil on Bandcamp: loscil.bandcamp.com/album/monument-builders
4. Katie Gately: Color
LA's Katie Gately is legit cool weird. A great deal of this sounds like a soundtrack to a quirky modern film that you'd want to watch over and over again. There's an incredible complexity and layering of sounds that really are an auditory treat in every way. Color is a good name for this as you will have visions of flashes of brightness each time you hear these tracks and the album itself is one ravishing adventure. Gately's brain must be amazing to be able to create such tracks!
Website: www.katiegately.com/
Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/katiegately
5. PJ Harvey: Hope Six Demolition Project
It's really reassuring that PJ Harvey can still manage to be a vital creative force in the universe who also is political and active in the overall art world. The Hope Six Demolition Project didn't reach me as much as White Chalk but it's a great deal more listenable to me than Let England Shake and it's still as important as an album. Hopefully, she will come back to Chicago soon enough!
www.universal-music.de/pj-harvey/videos/detail/video:3927...
6. La Femme: Mystére
Oh France, you've done it again! La Femme is so wonderfully weird and somehow they make the strange catchy in a way that hasn't quite been done before. La Femme is a psychedelic wonder with zainy elements. It's also great fun to listen to in many ways. It definitely makes me feel quite exhilarated and the tempo and pacing overall is quite wonderful. Another spectacular element is the male/female vocals and the way it drives the melody aspects of the overall compositions. Get lost in the weirdness and you may never quite be the same.
Whole album on youtube here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTMSguDFlMI
Facebook site: www.facebook.com/lafemmeressort
7. Angel Olsen: My Woman
Angel Olsen may have moved away to the sunny West Coast but she'll always be a Chicagoan to me. There's something about her voice that incites an almost nostalgic homesickness in the pit of my stomach when I hear her songs. It's also a Sunday early afternoon drinking coffee and standing in the sunlight with your cat rolling around on your feet type of music. Maybe that's too specific...I digress... Though Angel Olsen has collaborated significantly with Bonnie Prince Billy/Will Oldham, she is really growing into her own career wise and My Woman marks her fourth release. She's fast becoming Jagjaguwar's top darling and will undoubtedly have a long career with her distinctive vocals especially. There's a lovely loneliness here in the way she sings that will both captivate you and make you want to listen to her forever. If someone ever tells you they don't understand how melancholia can sound beautiful, you can put on Angel Olsen as a starter.
Angel Olsen videos: tinyurl.com/z6ge872
8. Le Berger: About Time
At first listen, if you aren't actively listening, this might seem just like a warm cascade of softness you can have on in the background but, the more you actively listen, the more you appreciate every aspect of the full sound as the cerebrally complex album this is. The only other way I can describe aspects of the feeling is that someone is playing the rim of a wine glass only the wine glass is really just this crazy planet we're all living in and all we can really do to respond is look up.
9. Ty Segall: Emotional Mugger
Ty keeps getting weirder and weirder...more than ever, his sound is like an eclectic mix of psychedelic, classic rock, garage rock, and glam rock all combined into this fuzzy drenched package. Or, as my dad called it "Retro hard rock." It's a really intriguing sort of album and worth a listen for many fans of various genres..it has an appeal that I guess could even be considered the verge of something that is the sum of the whole and perhaps has evolved to be different and better than it's previous influences.
It's worth noting that both of Thee Oh Sees albums this year are also decent releases but they don't push the envelope as much in my opinion (still great to listen to, though) and the Cory Hansen album (from the lead singer of the band Wand) has been great from what I've heard. It should be waiting at my door when I arrive back home but I haven't heard it fully yet.
10. Sophia Loizou: Singular
Singular is a really interesting release with layers of haunting noise that is also, at times, very calming and warm. It's a really creative work with engaging sounds but also a reassurance overall. Hailing from Bristol, England, Loizou creates soundscapes that have a touch of the postmodern and will seep into your subconscious to create some highly interesting dreams.
Website: www.sophialoizou.com/
Listen on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/sophialoizou
11. Chook Race: Around the House
I'm crap at limits and these top ten lists are just too hard. Aussie's Chook Race has fantastic male/female melodies and an awesome garage rock sound that is catchy yet overall low key and filled with great engaging rhythms that recall the best of The Go-Betweens. Really recommended stuff!
chookrace.bandcamp.com/album/around-the-house
Other Highly Recommended releases:
Over the years, I have really gotten into drone (or I guess most people might think of it as varied levels of structure within layers of ambient music). It started with Brian Eno's Music For Airplanes and my interest grew after I married Cinchel, who is an amazing musician himself. Here's a couple more recommendations specifically to that genre for music I find really creative and progressing the genre in interesting ways.
Vapor Lanes: Hieratic Teen
Vuzh Music/C. Reider/Tarkatak: Azure Bell, Midnight Well: www.vuzhmusic.com/releases/azure.html
Chihei Hatakeyama: White Paddy Mountain: www.chihei.org/
Cinchel's bandcamp: cinchel.bandcamp.com/
**All photos are copyrighted. Please don't use without permission.**
...
"Oh stranger tell me why
I must leave this shelter now
I have waited many lives
In this castle of time.
...
I will pass through this shattered night
And leave the fabric of time
Nowhere will you find me out there
All these years are meaningless
Forever lying in the dust or stay "
from the song A Tear in the Fabric of Time by Skeleton Trees