The Nail

What’s left of the trunk is the colour of rust, and it stands in that snow like a nail driven up through the floor of the world — as though you’re underneath the boards looking at the point where it came through, with the tip aimed at the sky. That’s the picture I couldn’t stop seeing, and it’s where the name came from. The other half of it is what the tree is doing: it’s tough as nails, still alive, still holding on in a place that’s clearly been working on it for years.

Something took the bark off. There’s no fire damage anywhere in that stand, so I doubt it was that — lightning is possible, age is possible, but if I had to put money on it I’d say beetles.

The light was worse than the frame lets on. Thick low snow clouds, everything flat and dim, and I was working handheld, which is why it’s shot wide open — thirteen frames stitched at f/1.8, which is not how anyone plans a panorama, but it’s what the day allowed.

Same trip as True Grit, Flickering Flames and Winter Solitude, the other three prints from that blizzard.