Artist’s statement
I spent the autumn enjoying all the images of trees by the British photographers I follow on Twitter. The variety of shape and colour was mesmerizing. As autumn gave way to winter, I turned my eyes to the wild woods surrounding my home on Lake Laberge in the Yukon, Canada’s north. The boreal forest surrounds me – mainly spruce, dark and foreboding in the weak light of winter – with splashes of aspen to add a ghostly presence. The boreal forest is no English woodland but a foreboding presence where ‘silence broods’. This is the German Wald, the domain of the Grimm brothers, harbouring spirits and demons - a place to enter carefully. This is Jung’s threshold, symbol of the unconscious, a place where the brave confront their fears – both real and supernatural.
It is this otherworldly, mysterious aspect of the wild woods that I sought to capture. So, if you dare, cross the threshold and enter my wild woods.
The light can play strange tricks - both on the eyes and on the mind.
The silence and the stillness are profound.
When the sunlight breaks through, trees become trees again.
And even the sedge at the edge of the woods sparkles.
The world seems back to normal -
although clothed in white.
Daylight fades and the spirits of the forest return.
Phantoms presences flit amongst the trees
Dark shapes emerge.
And the wise head home.
Images created with a Fuji XT1 set to monochrome with a red filter
Janet B. Webster
Credits:
All images by Janet B. Webster AKA the Silver Nomad