Menu

Tangled Shadows at Meldon

By Miles ·

Black-and-white photograph of intricate tree shadows crossing an old sunken woodland track near Meldon, with steep banks and bare branches overhead.
Black-and-white photograph of intricate tree shadows crossing an old sunken woodland track near Meldon, with steep banks and bare branches overhead.

Tangled tree shadows cross a sunken track near Meldon, turning a quiet stretch of woodland into a striking pattern of light and shade.

Tangled Shadows at Meldon

On a narrow holloway near Meldon, the bare branches overhead create an extraordinary tangle of lines across the ground. Sunlight reaches between the trees, throwing sharp, irregular shadows over the worn track and up the steep banks on either side.

The patterns seem almost deliberately arranged, crossing and overlapping in every direction. Look closely and you can begin to pick out the individual branches responsible, although it's soon impossible to tell where one ends and another begins.

Without their leaves, the trees reveal a wonderfully complicated structure of limbs and smaller branches, reaching towards one another across the lane.

Black and white felt particularly appropriate for this photograph. Removing the colour leaves the interplay between light and darkness to take centre stage, turning a familiar woodland path into something rather more graphic.

I enjoy finding these unexpected compositions in ordinary places. Nothing here is particularly dramatic in itself. It's simply a quiet stretch of woodland, transformed for a little while by the angle of the sunlight.

Continue