To me, each tree, like a human-being, has a tale to tell. When a tree dies, a whole story is interrupted, a destiny is altered for the worse. I feel as if the trees, bundled at the back of trucks, are cursing us with their broken hands, wounded faces, and severed roots. Perhaps this is how we are led towards damnation, little by little stripped of our humanity, when man’s “abounding foliage moistened with the dew” is reduced to ash and smoke.
I know I can’t save our trees with my photographs, I can’t restore Nature to her imperious verdure, yet I try to capture the lonesomeness and exile of the trees and encourage the viewers to look at nature with a different gaze, to remember that in the absence of trees the birds are homeless and there’s no air to breathe, to remember that if there are no trees humanity has already vanished.
About Ali Shokri
My name is Ali Shokri and I am a passionate nature photographer with a strong focus on trees. I was born in 1982 in Tabriz, Iran and have spent the last 16 years working on a project called The Tree. As a result of this project, I have had the chance to have individual and group exhibitions. More notably, I was invited to be a TED speaker about the life of trees and have published a book through Matador England UK called The Passion Of Trees.
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Copyrights:
All the pictures in this post are copyrighted Ali Shokri. Their reproduction, even in part, is forbidden without the explicit approval of the rightful owners.
