Inside the Gate

I love to see photographers pushing around the technical tools of the medium to make weird new kinds of imagery. It can be difficult to wrangle a new technique into an elegant form; experimentation can yield a pile of ugly work. But sometimes a beautiful surprise is born.

Kent Krugh photographs individual trees ​“in the round” so to speak, circumambulating his subjects while making multiple exposures. The ability to ​“freeze time” is one of the photographic medium’s main attractions, and with his circular technique, Krugh further opens this remarkable capacity. The resulting pictures have the energy of a good charcoal drawing. The subjects feel alive in the way I sometimes suspect trees to be… I mean, ​“alive” alive. Each tree is charged with history, a witness to the decay and growth in its immediate perimeter. Time swirls round and the tree remains a fixed point at its center.

Transparent layers hint at the unseen. Gravestones are among the faint artifacts surrounding some of the trees, and the series title ​“Inside the Gate” brings to my mind everything you’d find inside a graveyard.

​“When I select and emphasize an individual tree, my intention is not only to depict the tree but to cross through a threshold, allowing the viewer to listen and explore and perhaps relate to the central figure in ways not before understood or realized. It is as if one opens a gate into another spiritual realm where time and space are collapsed.”- Lisa

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Higher Ground Ash

Springfield Township Shagbark Hickory Fall

Bernheim Red Maple

Spring Grove Atlas Cedar

Fitton Center Upright English Oak

Heritage Park Silver Maple