July 19, 2021. Clear skies. Today I set out for a place known as “Vancouver’s Jiuzhaigou”—Joffre Lakes Provincial Park。
© Richard HuangThe park’s roughly ten-kilometre trail links three glacial lakes. Along the way, I saw towering trees and many fallen trunks.
© Richard Huang
© Richard HuangThe cross-sections of the trunks caught my interest, so I made a series of close-ups…
© Richard HuangCompeting with rocks for scant room to survive, the trees had twisted and contorted themselves into all manner of shapes…
© Richard HuangTheir cross-sections bore the traces of that struggle…
© Richard Huang
© Richard Huang
© Richard HuangThey also carried the scars of passing years…
© Richard HuangDappled shadows fell across the ground, forming intriguing patterns with roots and stones. I decided to make another series, this time of the shadows underfoot…
© Richard HuangOther hikers watched me repeatedly photographing the ground, unable to make out what I was after. Curious, they asked what I was shooting. I simply told them: shadows…
© Richard HuangBut shadows were not all I saw. I also saw the roots and fallen leaves beneath them…
© Richard HuangI saw stones, and the intriguing patterns they formed—natural and harmonious…
© Richard HuangI saw earth, and the countless overlapping footprints upon it…
© Richard Huang
© Richard HuangThrough the shadows, I seemed to glimpse the trees themselves…
© Richard Huang
© Richard HuangAs the shadows swayed, I saw the air moving; I saw the presence of the wind…
© Richard Huang
© Richard Huang
© Richard HuangMost importantly, I saw the light…
Without light, none of this would exist.