Trees by Noah Beil

Issue 19

I grew up on the East Coast and now I live in San Francisco. Sometimes I feel isolated in this city which is surrounded by what seems like endless miles of nature.

I'm not a nature photographer. I started photographing in the woods to escape a painful personal relationship. My need for time alone coincided with a major shift in my approach to photography.

Over the past year I have become increasingly disillusioned with the conceptual approach that is now pervasive in fine art photography. The photographs in this series contain the beginnings of a process of reclaiming my photography as a visual art that expresses my feelings and emotions and connects with the histories of photography, painting, and drawing.

When I photograph in the woods, my photographs are about my experience of being in the woods. In the trees I am lost, surrounded, embraced, isolated, and submerged. Areas of light and shadow combine with intricate details of vegetation to create an abstract space in which I can lose myself. I come to the woods alone to feel and to dream, not to think.

Noah Beil is a San Francisco, CA based photographer.
To view more of Noah's work, please visit his website