This image was made at An Torr, a woodland trail in the Scottish Highlands, on a rain-softened autumn day. The path became the photograph’s organizing idea, not as a cliché of choice and consequence, but as something more physical.
The palette here does most of the work. Fallen beech leaves have turned the path itself into a warm river of copper and rust, set against mosses and grasses that autumn has not touched yet. That tension, decay and vitality occupying the same frame, is what drew me to this particular moment.
The moss-bearded trees and the lone stump anchor the composition in time, reminding the viewer that this forest is very old. I wanted stillness: just the quiet geometry of a path and the feeling that it is worth taking to witness the rest of the forest.
