Lifeblood

During the summer of 2017 British Columbia, Canada.

BC experienced some of the largest and most devastating forest fires in the history of this province. A state of emergency was declared as what started as several small fires quickly turned into a raging inferno that swept across 3 million acres of land, leaving in its wake a vast, eerie landscape of ash and dust. More than 65,000 people had to be evacuated and leave their homes across the province. Smoke became so thick one could barely breath, engulfing everything for several weeks and spreading across the entire country as a gigantic cloud so large it was clearly visible from space. Fire crews from around the nation and other countries were battling what seemed like a one sided war, reclaiming and protecting towns and cities only for the next storm and heatwave to fuel the fire once again, during a time of year where there was little hope for rain. Over 300 homes were damaged during the blaze and many more damaged. After what seemed like an eternity, some rain and change in weather did come but the fire had spread out to its own limits. Slowly the smoke started to clear, revealing the real aftermath of what is now known as the 2017 BC Fires. Where once tall and lush trees stood, only a haunting dark silhouette of a forest remains, so still and quiet, stripped of all colours and life yet mysteriously beautiful in so many ways.

After everything had cleared and life was slowly coming back to its normal pace, as a photographer I ventured out into some of the burn areas, so large and endless you could walk for miles on end and see nothing then destruction till the horizon. With the goal in mind to capture a single image that could tell this story yet reveal the haunting beauty in an abstract and creative way. I set out to capture the image in mind with just my mobile phone, after several days of exploring different parts of the burn, I discovered one particular tree that caught my attention. It was larger than the rest and had its last sap running down the trunk like its own Lifeblood.

As the title states for me this not only tells the story behind the image itself, but also helps reveal a visual story as the sap from these trees slowly fades away creating a creative perspective as this life line guides your focus into the centre of the composition, drawing your eyes in to further exploring the image. Shot on my iPhone X but the real creative choice was to use the Moment V2 Fisheye lens, extending the normal camera view to a 170 degrees field of view equivalent, for an exaggerated look that perfectly frames the trees around the subject of this photo. It was edited using standard IOS tools within the photos app on iPhone. After some experimentation, I decide to go with a Black & White classic style edit for that final touch to express this emotional story better. Simply achieved with one of the standard Black & White filters available within the app, also adding a few manual adjustments and corrections to the image for highlights, shadows, contrast and a subtle bit of sharpening to really bring out those hidden details within the burned bark of the trees.

Photography has always been such an inspiring Art Form for myself as a creative individual, to capture the memories that surround all of us each and every day, in every moment and every life. Some only mere seconds long yet as a photograph, yet these stories will be remembered for a lifetime to come. Just like this image capturing and seeing the abstract beauty within sadness, marking a new chapter of life and regeneration of planet earth.