Panorama of Tree Trunks

Description

I was in Margaret River on assignment, spending a few days capturing the region’s rich mix of vineyards, rugged coastline, and moody forests. The light in that part of Western Australia has a quality I’ve always loved. Soft, golden, and timeless. But after a few days of tight schedules and planned shoots, I craved something less structured. Something instinctual.

So, I drove south, no real plan, just a rough direction. Until I found myself deep inside Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park.

The road narrowed. The noise of town faded. And then I was there, surrounded by forest. Towering trees rose on either side of me like silent monuments, their trunks weathered and tall, some bleached silver by sun and time, others deep brown with the scars of seasons past. The canopy filtered the light, creating long shadows and beams of gold that sliced through the undergrowth like stage lights in a cathedral of nature.

I parked the car and wandered slowly into the forest, camera in hand. There was no path, just the feeling of being small among giants. It wasn’t the leaves that caught my attention, nor the canopy overhead. It was the trunks. Hundreds of them. Each one slightly different. Together, they formed a perfect panorama of texture, light, and vertical rhythm.

I set up the tripod, switched to a longer lens, and began to shoot. Not the wide, sweeping landscape people often expect from forests, but a tight, horizontal frame, zoomed in on just the tree trunks. The result was strangely hypnotic: an abstract forest wall of straight lines and subtle tones, each trunk telling its own quiet story. Bark peeling. Shadows falling. Lichen climbing.

Click. Click. Click.

It felt like photographing stillness itself. No movement. No sound, except for the distant rustle of leaves and the occasional call of a bird overhead.

That photo became one of my favourites from the trip. A stripped-back, textural study of one of Australia’s wild places. It wasn’t dramatic or loud. It didn’t scream for attention. But it captured the soul of the southwest. Ancient, enduring, and quietly beautiful.

Sometimes, the best photos come when you step off the track, when you let instinct, not itinerary, guide you. That day in Leeuwin-Naturaliste, all I had to do was listen, look up… and zoom in.