Part 1 of my series of threatening winter trees. Canon EOS 7D EF 70-300mm L f/4-5.6 at 70mm f/5.6 1/1600 ISO 400

A heart filled with nothing but the weight of a sorrow that is at the same time ragged and dull, heavy and insubstantial breaks every time it feels the loss. This is new, this something without a frame of reference, and every time she turns to see something else that reminds her she remembers and this new thing, this complete lack of the presence that dominated her existence. She feels a ragged catch in her throat and she wonders… if the next breath will come.

I wanted to come up with series the las time I was shooting in Victoria and as it was winter the trees had a very threatening and interesting texture and form. I don’t normally have a lot of patience for heavy post-processing filters but it seemed to fit with this series and each of the trees in this series got a slightly different treatment. This image made me feel like the sad parts of a Bronte novel and I wanted to give it a treatment that looked somewhat Victorian. The heavy vignetting and the ragged border push us in this direction.

-Russell Berg