To better understand society’s reliance on forests, we also have to recognise the role that the forest plays in our consciousness of being human. In this project I am photographing the relationship between trees and people, revealing the aspects of community and interdependency that they share. 

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I am also using this reflection on the cultural bonds between people and trees to represent the duality of my own emotional life. By combining landscape and portrait images, I explore the loneliness I experienced in my early years growing up near the forests of Wicklow. While I have sentimental memories of childhood and close ties to my family, I have equally struggled with depressive thoughts and feelings of being trapped in the middle of nowhere. These images were made by using a method of re-walking the routes that I took as a teenager struggling with depression. They are contrasted with portraits of my family, some of whom are pictured in their own spaces while others are seen crossing that invisible line to join me in the forest.