Underneath

It’s rare that we get a chance to see the working network of tree roots, the system that does all the hard work that allows these entities to grow and flourish. Usually we can see them only after some catastrophe has occurred. That’s the case here - one of the recent wind storms toppled an alarming number of trees in the Arboretum, uprooted them savagely.

It was with an element of reverence that I walked among the remains of the downed trees. I’ve walked there several times since the storm. At first it resembled a disaster area, a place where a great calamity occured. Now, after much clean-up, it reminds me of a cemetery. Root bundles, often with butt logs attached, in quiet, mown spaces.

I wanted to memorialize these spaces. I tried several approaches and settled on shooting the roots, seen here from below, a novel perspective. As I look at the image, I can’t tell what is disruption caused by the tree’s upheaval and what is simply the way the roots worked in real life. In either case, it serves as an intimate, if ambiguous portrait. What seems like chaos supported a vibrant living entity now lost to us.