Trees and Crows 2006

This photograph, Trees and Crows, was captured by Abbas Kiarostami, and I find it really intriguing. I love how the trees just line up, each with a totally unique texture. The closest one is dark and craggy, like old skin. Then, as you move further back, they get lighter, smoother, and feel less weighty. The way the light plays on those different surfaces, it’s so physical, almost like you could reach out and feel the roughness or the coolness. I keep thinking about how Kiarostami has arranged it so your eyes go on a bit of a journey, from that solid dark trunk to the bright green grass. There’s a crow in the foreground, a pop of life against all this static verticality of the trunks, which reminds me of the work of another Iranian artist, Behjat Sadr, who also brought a sense of dynamism to her paintings through the use of lines. It’s not something you can put into words, but there’s a feeling of life, even in something as simple as a row of trees.