Skeleton Trees …

I have remarked before on how I am attracted by the relationship of trees to their landscape, and how I marvel at the survival of many seemingly long dead trunks that stand through time against the odds of winds and weather, and those local plundering firewood consumers often seen scavenging far less attractive supplies of fuel to keep the winter cold at bay. Perhaps struck by lightning, or perhaps just the unfortunate victim of a long dry season, many of these skeletal forms are towering eucalyptus or blue gum carcasses. One day they’ll surely fall, but I do know of at least one example in Gauteng that over the seven years I travelled a particular route held on fast to its self-proclaimed territorial rights. Marvellous!

As an abstract composition these two adjacent specimens in the Tweedie area show just the presence I have spoken of. A tempting monochrome study, their simple silvered forms against a blazing blue winter sky is somewhat more dramatic.

Treeline

Driving through South Africa I am often fascinated by trees. Sometimes it is a solitary specimen that has me asking how it came to be where it is - a lonely weeping willow at the roadside of a national highway, or a dead blue gum trunk presumably struck by lightning - its remains still defiantly standing erect. So often the formation of a clump of trees adds great interest to an otherwise boring landscape (why does the Free State come to mind?). And then there are those frequently seen rows of trees, implausibly positioned along the ridge of some distant hill or kopje looking for all the world like a mohawk haircut in but not of nature. Today what caught my eye was a simple row of blue gums - an obvious wind break alongside agricultural lands. And one solitary hay bale - I could not help but wonder where its siblings had gone and why this one remained behind. In panoramic mode, I tried to keep the composition to the photographer's 'rule of thirds'. 

I think it works.