Into the Wild with Luke Brown

This article contains image descriptions in the captions to help those with visual impairments.

Wooded Heights - Luke Brown ID: A woodland scene depicting a chopped down tree. The stump is jagged and twisted.

“We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and Titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.”

— Henry David Thoreau, "Walden"

Our core connection with nature has been with us since our ancestors first took steps the sunlight and examined the world around them. Yet in 2020, you won't be wrong for thinking that our respect, care and duty to wild spaces has somewhat been depleted. Through consumerism, profit and hollowing out the ground beneath us, it can be argued that we have lost sense of the true power and resolve of the wilds. With this in mind, Luke Browns project 'Wooded Heights' documents and explores the ecosystem of the ancient Caledonia forest and Grampian Mountains of the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland.

Wooded Heights - Luke Brown ID: A forest with tree's and floor fegitation.

The Caledonia Forest is not special just because it's a wild space that has been relatively untouched by man. It's special because it's a natural species to Scotland. With many forests across the UK being American imports, this ecosystem boasts its own conifers, pines and birch which have been dwelling in the Scottish wild lands longer than we have. With this in mind, Brown's work reminds us the importance of these natural spaces, photographing them with care and respect. Spanning forests, giant mountains covered in snow, the work feels like a love letter to mother nature. A beckoning call that these places are important and need our protection.

With the climate crisis growing out of our control each day, these photographs may become a living testament to what was there, how they once looked. Lost in time, yet preserved within a photograph.

Wooded Heights - Luke Brown ID: A river sunning through a woodland. Multiple tree's have fallen and now lay across the river in the middle of the image.

Wooded Heights - Luke Brown ID: A large mountain in the foreground covered in snow.

See more of Luke Brown's work here - http://www.brownluke.com/