Leshy?

I can't tell you how excited I was to be gifted Tree Hunting for my birthday: a thousand tress to find in Britain and Ireland's towns & cities. And a signed copy to boot! In Paul Wood's excellent (and hefty!) tome he, and I quote, "seeks out the best individual trees - the most charismatic, quirky or downright spectacular - that grow in our towns, cities and villages." He talks passionately about our relationship with them and how they impact on our lives. From personal experience I only have to out of my window and I'm constantly reminded of the 150 year old beech tree I documented in a short film during Lockdown. And I know when we did trees as a Photo Challenge many of you have similar relationships with our arboreal friends. I feel priveleged to have this beautiful book sitting on my bookshelf. (You won't be surprised to learn I've already started my quest.)

See the tree how big it's grown

It seems like a lifetime ago now, but, as regular readers will know, during those grim days of Lockdown I started taking photographs of the beech tree that lives outside my front door and posting them on Twitter; egged on by my son James who said I should photograph it every day for a year, I ended up doing precisely that. It was all done very much on the hoof so there was no fixed point where a tripod would stand (it was all hand held from, roughly, the same position) and no fixed time of day when I pressed the shutter (most of the shots are mid-morning, but a couple were taken ad hoc to capture a particular light - or the time that it snowed).

So 365 images (give or take) were deposited one by one into a digital folder whereupon I gave them to James and asked him to 'put them together'. Which, to his eternal credit, he's done. He's also scored it which makes the whole thing pretty unique. Here's the first cut. 

(Just hit the 'play' arrow on the tree  - you don't need a Twitter account to view it)

 

Remember the beech tree I photographed every day for a year during lockdown?https://t.co/R6HoAJL06n

— 𝙹𝚘𝚑𝚗 𝙼𝚎𝚍𝚍 (@JohnMeddUK) August 20, 2022

Tree update

As you may be aware I embarked on a little art project last Autumn: I'm photographing the beech tree outside my house every day for a year; I started back in October so I'm about a third of the way thru. When it's complete I'll have 365 images which James and I are going to turn into a short film. I've also asked him to score it with an original soundtrack - I can't wait to see (and hear) the results of our handiwork.

In the meantime here's a couple of recent photos to give you an idea of how it's looking lately. The top image is from January 24th when we had our first dumping of snow. And the one below was taken this morning. (You can track the daily updates here on my Twitter feed, should you get the urge).

P.S. An arborist came out to look at the tree just before Christmas as part of a TPO* survey he was carrying out. When I asked him how old it was he was able to tell me with with a fair degree of certainty that it dates back to around 1880. 

* Tree Preservation Order

Forever Autumn

1 December 2020

They say every man should have a hobby; I'm not sure if this counts, but my pet project over the last few weeks has been photographing the beech tree outside my front door; from the same vantage point and at (roughly) the same time of day. I put the first few in a collage, the rest have been posted on my Twitter feed. At some point someone will have to politely tap me on the shoulder and say "'Enough with the tree already, John." But until such time as the pubs and caffs reopen again it's kind of all I've got right now.

Claire Martin - Brilliant Trees (1999)

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Brevity; the idea that less is more. It's a notion I swear by. If you can say it in an eight line poem, then do so. With apologies to Tolstoy, but I'm sure War and Peace could have been condensed into two sides of A4.

Like Bowie, Robert Frost's command of the language was such that he could write a poem as powerful as Nothing Gold Can Stay with room to spare. Autumn - and life - encapsulated in a mere 40 words. It's one of my favourite pieces of prose.

Nature's first green is gold, 

Her hardest hue to hold. 

Her early leaf's a flower; 

But only so an hour. 

Then leaf subsides to leaf. 

So Eden sank to grief, 

So dawn goes down to day. 

Nothing gold can stay.

27 October 2020

There is a beautiful beech tree outside my front door. It must be 200 years old if it's a day. Although I've only lived in this house a little over three years, I feel as if I've known this tree all my life.

I took a photograph of it at the end of October with a fish eye lens. I then tweeted it and said that if I was to take another photograph of it 24 hours later it would look different again. It did. And it has done every day since. These two photos are separated by just over a week - the collage below is a daily record. (I know what I'm like - I can see me continuing to photograph this tree every day.)

5 November 2020