Occasionally over the years I've been asked to photograph something out of the ordinary (and had some pretty weird requests from time to time as you might imagine!)
Last month I received an email from Peter who wanted to commission me to photograph a tree that his wife passed every day on the drive home. Lindsay had always loved that tree since she was brought up in the neighbouring village, not far from Silchester and had made her home there after getting married.
For her birthday this summer, Peter wanted to commission an original image to give to his wife and after finding me online sent me an email which said "Can you do something with this tree that will make my wife love me forever?"
I checked the location out on Google Streetview and at first glance I was tempted to decline - the dead tree with it's long spindly limbs was almost completely overwhelmed by a huge oak tree a couple of meters away. I could see how it would make a striking image if it was on it's own on a desolate hillside for example. To make it more difficult it was right by the road and bordered on the other side by a high hedge and surrounded by nettles.
I visited the site during the daytime and from a photographic point of view was a bit underwhelmed by the scene. With this kind of photograph, the time of day is really important and I realised immediately I would have to return later that evening.
At dusk, the light was a lot lower and the colour in the sky had started to come out. In order to make the image visually effective, I had to make the dead tree prominent in the scene and somehow separate it from it's lofty neighbour. I decided to light the tree with portable flash equipment and it took a while to get exactly the correct angle to make as much of the tree as possible stand out.
At that moment, as sometimes happens on a shoot, everything came together. The light levels in the sky matched the flash illumination, the colours of the fading sunset appeared and then a bird flashed into frame, on it's way back to it's nest. "I'm stunned, said Peter, "you've completely exceeded my expectations…"
