Eric Engles: Tree Portraits

For Eric Engles, photography is not primarily about producing images. Rather, following the implications of Dorothea Lange’s oft-quoted observation that the camera is “a tool that helps you see without a camera,” he seeks out varied places of visual interest and, camera in hand, uses the possibility of photographic representation to see more deeply and clearly, striving for a state of being in which the ordinary world is no longer ordinary but instead full of luminous wonders. Sometimes, these sessions result in images that hold the potential for recreating for others the same transcendence and connection Engles experienced in making them.

In his most recent collection for Viewpoint, “Tree Portraits,” Engles treats trees as his central subjects, not the mere accessories they become in more traditional landscapes. He reveals trees’ distinctive characteristics, beautiful forms, and prominence in different landscapes, aiming to portray individual trees much like we portray individual humans in portraits: as unique beings that can teach us something about ourselves and the world.

The individuality of each tree was captured using whatever tools and techniques seemed appropriate—ultra-wide-angle or fisheye lenses, intentional camera movement, long exposure, creative processing, and rendering in black-and-white. If you can see more than a trunk, branch, bark, leaf, and wood, you can hear the stories the trees have to tell.