Sauvie Island is surrounded by the Columbia and Willamette Rivers, ten miles from Portland, Oregon. It’s a place I’ve photographed many times over the years, part designated wildlife area, part farmland. After a heavy snowstorm, unusual for this part of the Pacific Northwest, isolated stands of oak and alder stood in an almost monochromatic landscape of melting snow, drizzle and fog. I’ve often wondered why farmers leave lonely trees in the midst of their fields, but we notice them in ways that would be lost if they were part of the forest.