APRIL 2023 · GROUNDED
Weekend bug-out, Mid Wales
Mid Wales, Powys
April in Powys with no itinerary. There was a wooden shelter on a hillside — simple construction, sloped roof, built low, hobbit-hole proportions. Inside: a blue tarp rigged as a second layer, some supplies stacked at the back, the forest visible through the open front. The kind of shelter that exists because someone built it with intention, in the right place in the forest, and left it for whoever needed it.
The forest was the subject. Specifically, what age does to a woodland: the moss on the trunks accumulating over decades until the original bark surface has been replaced by something green and living. The gnarled patterns in old wood — not damage, just the record of growth under different pressures over a long time.
The moss on the trunks accumulating over decades until the original bark surface has been replaced by something green and living.
Mid Wales woodland — April 2023
Bare branches against pale light. In April, before the canopy closes in, the branch structure is readable — the rhythm of trunk to branch to twig, the density of it, the way the layers behind create depth in a photograph without any deliberate arrangement. Dense bare branches creating intricate layered patterns across misty forest: that image is the one I came away with. It is just the forest doing what it does in April, and the camera recording it.
The path through ancient woodland, moss-covered trunks, brown leaf litter. The path itself is narrow and worn. The moss on the trunks closest to the path is thicker — more moisture from the compressed ground, more footfall stirring the air. Small-scale effects, visible if you look.
The spread of bare trees with moss creating depth and rhythm through the forest: a wider version of the same subject. The rhythm is in the spacing of the trunks, the repetition of the vertical lines, the green interrupting the grey of winter wood.
I was looking at texture for its own sake. That was enough.
Simple wooden shelter with sloped roof nestled on a hillside surrounded by bare trees
Interior view of a makeshift camp shelter with blue tarp and supplies, forest visible outside
Dense bare branches of dormant trees creating intricate layered patterns across misty forest
Moss-covered tree trunks with gnarled branches silhouetted against pale woodland light
Spread of bare trees with green moss on trunks creating depth and rhythm through forest
Path through ancient woodland with moss-covered trees and brown leaf litter on ground