searchingtoseemaze
Posted on January 31, 2018
Twisted trunks. Tousled roots. Knotty hollows. A mesh of mosses and a jumble of leaves. A snarl of branches.
A woodland maze: a landscape to loose yourself in…
and maybe find yourself?
© words and images, Emily Hughes
forest majesty
Posted on January 12, 2018
I love photographing trees, and walking amongst them in forests just as much. A walk in the forest is always restorative and revitalising. My children think I am quite mad when I walk up to the trees and start stroking them, but there’s just something so nurturing and comforting about them that I can’t help myself: they have seen it all haven’t they, these ancient masts towering above us? They have wisdom in their branches and intellect susurrates through their roots in slow, deliberate murmurs.
This wood is close to my house and consists almost entirely of beech trees, with some clusters of silver birch, ash and cherry dotted about, here and there. The beech trees look ghostly in the subdued winter sunlight. Their bark when young is smooth and pale. As they get older, more mature, the girth broadens and the wrinkles develop. Beech trees grow in thickets which are often called ‘queens’ – the queens of the forest; elegant and regal.
These images were all snapped on my phone.
© Emily Hughes, 2018
firecracker
Posted on December 18, 2017
Today I discovered that our dormant winter garden is full of life and energy: buds, shoots, seeds and new growth just waiting to explode. The acer stands, glowing like a firecracker amongst it all: flames flickering; vibrant and bursting with colour.
© words and images by Emily Hughes, 2017
these watery things
Posted on July 7, 2015
My life is going through a lot of changes at the moment. These are changes which I have instigated. Things are shifting. It is exciting, but extremely unsettling, and there are times when I question my motives for stirring up the waters. I question why I am constantly compelled to confront what is real and safe and solid. Sometimes it helps me to express these feelings with my images and sometimes I write words too, which I cannot call as substantial as poetry or prose, but…. well, they are just something.
***
In these moments, when the frayed ends of a tightly wound skein begin to unravel. When the warm, solid earth beneath my feet seems to shift. When I look up, and even the clear blue sky wavers and shimmers, teasing like a mirage in the temperate desert heat. Watery things are playful things; beguiling and dissembling. They steal the light and scatter it joyfully like pebbles, skimming this way and that. Dodging and darting here and there.
Impossible to gather in my arms.
Every time I look, things are different… as if my eyes are shifting. A pair of aqueous orbs.
Every time, it is new.
Don’t confess your secrets to those watery things. They will suck them in greedily and and then spit them out like polished cherry stones.
© images and words by Emily Hughes, 2015
the forest
Posted on August 27, 2014
I’m back from our family road trip around Europe (6 countries in 16 days). I was hugely inspired by the lithe, elegant pine trees of the Bavarian forest, so different to our forests here in the UK. They appeared to me like ghostly apparitions in the fog, and this is my interpretation.
Looking forward to catching up with everyone over the next days…
© images and content Emily Hughes, 2014
a folk tale
Posted on January 29, 2014
sometimes, nature knits its own stories.
© images and content Emily Hughes, 2014
Oh, sweet blossom!
Posted on April 6, 2013
© images and content Emily Hughes and searchingtosee, 2013
A walk in the woods
Posted on May 16, 2012
I’ve been sick all week with a horrid virus so haven’t had the energy to even get dressed let alone think about blogging. Still, I do have some new photos to post. Before I got ill we went out for a walk in the woods on Saturday. It was so green and lush and moist (on account of all the rain we have been having). Totally magical.
I focused in on interesting leaves, played around a bit with exposure and focus, and reflections. I quite like the results, I think. They are a bit dreamy. Very me, anyway!
© Emily Hughes and searchingtosee, 2012
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