Moving Wood


series of 42



2012 - 2016

For several years, I wandered across a small part of the wild Norwegian woods documenting the changes in the landscape as the seasons alternated. While I stumbled over dead trunks, slipped on wet leaves and stepped on dark, soft soil, made of layers of pine-needles, I realized, that those trees, while busily interacting with each other in slow motion, not only are constantly on the move, but that their movements in fact are part of a very fundamental choreography. What I photographed was the surface of the earth in the making.

These images' dramatic expressions demonstrate how agile trees actually are. Turning around and falling over, bending deep or running away like in a hurry, dancing wild, leaning against each other, in order to, in the end, break as easily as matches, while energy no longer flows. There, eventually, the trees' lives end. They become earth, offering new seedlings a nutritious soil.

Copyright © 2016 - 18 by Monique de Groot. All Rights Reserved.