Leaf Light

Searching for atmosphere not accuracy; memories of May

The day
Begins with a blank canvas of sky, off white
Brightens briefly before hiding behind grey
Blows hot and cold
Agitates the birch, light dancing on leaves
Wraps the day in birdsong
Drops behind the hill in pastels and powder, and as quickly is gone.

Hello from the moss,

I think I’ve noticed this spring like no other, most especially the leaves. Perhaps the cold wait, the seeming lateness, sharpened my attention. It’s one of the greenest I can remember and the rain we thought would never end has been welcomed by plants. It shows me that some years, in what is supposed to be one of the driest parts of the country, they endure rather than thrive. In the last few days, rowan have opened their blooms and are weighted by white as flowers catch up with leaves in an explosion of fertility. Drying puddles carry the briefest of patterns in yellow mascara, pollen from Scots pine dropped like tears by the rain.

I’ve been watching the way the birch leaves glimmer in the breeze, sun reflecting off their upper surfaces. I could fill this letter just with images of birch, always a favourite, each image as each tree is different. In between two prose poems you’ll find a selection of leaf light in a memory of May.

Below Trees, Among Friends

Water taught me to play with movement, to limit focus, and to go out in bright sunlight. These all run contrary to my early understanding of what landscape photography should be. Should tends to be an unhelpful word.

There’s a way I walk, an unmade track that once drew a line between the moss and the designed landscape around the big house. Time and nature have blurred the distinction between planted trees on one side - beech, lime, oak, Norway maple and horse chestnut which mingle with opportunistic birch, willow and alder - and those that have regenerated on the edge of the moss: more birch, some rowan and, further back, Scots pine.

First water drew me here - old ditches that play morse code, dots, dashes and em dashes of seasonal pools that come and go. Home to Sphagnum moss, sedge and accumulations of branch, lichen and leaf. Then the understorey and the tales it tells: of blaeberry, ling, fern, and more moss. This month, I’ve been here for the leaves.

A moment’s indecision and despite the breeze I opt for the macro lens. Weight leans in favour of the compact, but I took that last time and I want a closer look at translucence while it lasts.

Some time later…

It’s easy to look for perfection when photographing plants, yet we are told that each blemish, each wrinkle, is what makes us individual. I find myself looking through the lens, searching for character rather than the flawless; already leaves are nibbled, bored and punctured, not much more than a week old.

Even the nettles snag my eye.

All of this leads me into play: images that I might in the past have rejected have something that holds me: atmosphere, evocation. The rest of my walk is a search for serendipity. I begin conventionally, composing carefully before beginning looser play. Sometimes autofocus, sometimes manual, even pre-focused and ‘blind’, estimating distance.

Sharpness is overrated. It’s another lesson learned from water.

We learn from what we see… others do. In books and magazines, now online. It’s easy to follow, but what happens when you bend or break ‘the rules’? When you let curiosity be your guide? My photographic beginnings were conventional, and I can remember a time when I strived to get everything in focus. Now I’m much more relaxed; it isn’t ‘spray and pray’ but it is play and results in a number of images that I doubt I could have pre-conceived.

The other thing that I have learned, both from the way that water has shaped my vision, and from returning to the same small place, is that you never run out of possibilities. And sometimes serendipity does play a part: glitter catches your eye, threads dance, and you find a composition defined by absence. Ma is a Japanese concept celebrating negative space, an emptiness full of possibilities.

These images won’t please everyone - but they speak of the mood of the day, the memory of the moment, the feeling that they hold and transmit. A reflection, as if in water. And like memories that fade over time, their edges are soft.

Thank you for visiting the moss with me, and for your response to last week’s post. We’re back in rain, and the greens have deepened, their luminance lost. It’s a time of year that slips away too soon, but I hope this letter will extend the memories you hold of May.

Did you enjoy this issue of FLOW? Don't keep it to yourself - share a visual poem, a moment of calm, with the people you know.

Until next week,

Steady falls the rain.
First softly, quietly
then impatient
downpouring, amplified
percussion. 

All words and images copyright © Michela Griffith except where otherwise noted