Time in the grain

Jōmon Sugi asks the eye to slow down. Its trunk does not offer a clean outline: folds, swellings and broken lines interrupt any simple reading of the tree.

In this photograph, texture becomes a way to follow time. The camera records one short interval of light on the surface, while the living tree continues well beyond the moment of exposure.

The scale is difficult to hold in a single frame. Rather than trying to turn the tree into a number or an emblem of age, I followed the visible grain. It lets the image remain close to the material presence of Jōmon Sugi on Yakushima.