Cracked Aspen Trunk: Near Bryce Canyon, UT

This standing dead aspen looked like a weathered telephone pole covered with remnants of old notices.  Loose, white powdered bark flipped in the wind, still light and powdery with every bit of its living luster.  The wood itself was cracked and fibrous and yellowed with weather, a shadow of a life degenerating over decades.

It was the end of an era.  However long this tree had stood, soon it would fall.  Though the emergence of life in the fresh young forest all around it seemed perpetual, this single life had ended.  I composed this photograph very quickly and simply, then turned and left the aging tree in the woods alone.

Cracked Aspen Trunk: Near Bryce Canyon, UT, 2007

I have created two interpretations of this scene.  The Colour Photograph is a match to the original slide, while the Black and White Photograph is a second interpretation in monochrome.