Winter Landscape of Trees Triptych

After a day of shooting red-crowned cranes in Kushiro, Hokkaido, Japan, I found myself at the side of a road, struck by the scene in front of me. In the fading light of day, I marvelled at the exquisiteness of the landscape that I was seeing and soon realised that it could not be succinctly reduced to a single, so-called perfect image of the scene. Much beauty and majesty may be found in a single image of a particular landscape, but at that moment, the notion of the ‘perfect’ frame came across as rather naïve, even banal.

This triptych arose as a response to that realisation. Each image was created to stand on its own as a distinctive composition, to be viewed as a large format print (length: 100 – 120cm). However, when explored as a triptych, one becomes conscious of different perspectives, new landscape elements, and fresh details.

Ultimately, one becomes aware that each piece of the triptych presents what was there, and also ‘presents’ what was missing – a state that invites viewers to go beyond the frame, and imaginatively explore the multi-dimensional grandeur of the scene.