a tree can witness everything they hope we forget
stacking time. resisting erasure. the stubborn persistence of art.
a tree older than the country it stands in. older than the men who named the country. older than the men who stood in front of podiums with crooked smiles. men who shook hands with other men who owned things and spoke about the future as if it belonged to them. they are louder now, these men. not in volume, but in presence. they operate behind prosaic slogans with shiny corporatocratic policy statements.
tyrants in ill-fitting suits with linkedin grins, proud of the quiet violence they use to scrub entire communities on demand. with this quiet violence they seek to destroy memories and call it being great again. with this quiet violence they try to erase you, and then they look surprised when you notice. their cruelty is not purely theatrical nor is it purely government efficiency. the cruelty is the point.
when it is done, they say it was always like this. but the tree knows better. and so does the photograph.
pentax kx / ilford delta 3200
this image was not made in an instant. it required time. required patience. required belief that holding still long enough might reveal something others missed. a long exposure stacks light like memory, folding time into something less obedient. it does not ask to forget, but instead it asks to remain.
across the frame, the cars moved. the stars moved. the light from every passing object was gathered and kept. every motion, every choice. none of it was erased. it was not optimized. it was not sanitized. it was witnessed.
what they hate is a witness. the testament of existence makes their skin crawl. in their version of the world, nothing inconvenient survives. entire histories are rewritten to remove the ones who challenged them, unsettled them, lived too loudly, loved too openly, and dared demand to be seen as human. in their world, their invented legacy is paramount while humanity is disposable. in their world, of course, they are always, always right.
our photographs interrupt that fantasy. it says they are wrong. the absolute in evidence. it proves we were here. it exposes that they also were here. we see it. and more importantly, we keep it. the photograph itself is resistance. this is why we keep making them. not for just chasing nostalgia. not for just showcasing aesthetics.
every time they try to flatten the record, to make it easier to forget, we can still point and say: there. look. that light? it passed through us. it touched us. it left something behind. we did not look away.
they will keep erasing. that is what cowards do when they fear being remembered for what they really are. they will pretend their revision is the truth. they will act surprised when our roots refuse to disappear with the rest of the past they long to forget.
the tree will still be there. so too will the photograph.
see more of my work here.