Primeval Oaks, Myakka Park Drive (Florida)


  • Photographer
    Scott Bolendz
  • Prize
    Honorable Mention
  • Date of Photograph
    7/26/2015

This image is from a series called “Remnants.” Here is the series statement: As a young child, I was diagnosed with a serious and chronic medical condition that robbed me of both my physical and emotional sense of well-being. From this early shattering experience, I learned a difficult lesson about loss, the fragility of life and what it means to struggle through hardship and survive. It’s from this autobiographical perspective that the Florida landscape speaks to me. For more than a century, Florida’s ancient wilderness has been degraded by an unyielding onslaught of human activity. Today, native green space in many parts of the state is so minimal and fragmented that it almost seems strange, out of place — like a ghostly vestige from another time. But it’s in these remnant natural areas that I feel a deep connection to the surviving trees and plant life. I often see echoes of my own experiences expressed in this larger context. Older, individual trees that manifest the struggle to endure and thrive — i.e. those with prominent root systems, or with branches grasping toward the light, or even the toppled and tortured shapes of living palm trees — remind me of my own journey through adversity. They are symbols of resilience and hope.

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