Figure 1 – Picasso in the Forest, Assabet River Wildlife Refuge, Maynard, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

Sometimes you’re just walking in the woods, surrounded by natural visions and you are suddenly drawn back into the human world. The other morning I was walking along the path and saw the tree of Figure 1 in my peripheral vision. Like I said, i was drawn back – but in a pleasing way. It was reminiscent of Picasso’s 1942 sculpture now in the MOMA in New York City – The Bull’s Head.

It is not uncommon for trees to remind us of other things – of people or animals. Indeed, early on in my digital photography days, I started a project which I called The Quest for the Ents. The Ents are, of course, the tree people of Tolkein’s Middle Earth. They symbolize a mythic animation of the forest. And they symbolize its terrible loss as well. There are no young Ents, becuase the Ent Wives have long disappeared.

Canon T2i with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens at 100 mm, ISO 800, Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/500th sec at f/9.0, with -1 exposure compensation.