Exposures
Land

Exposures · Volume Three

Land

Sixty imagined monochrome landscapes — the lone tree, the root hauled into the light, the water keeping its indifferent copy. A land that is a body, carrying what has happened to it.

Introduction Colophon

▶ Play the slideshow

AI-generated (Midjourney) + Photoshop · prompts by Hulki Okan Tabak · November 2024–January 2025 · made with Claude · © the author.

For Ansel Adams, who taught the water to hold still.

Mitákuye Oyásʼiŋ.

All my relations.

— Lakota

IThe Open Landthe observed land; the witness opens its eye

A bare tree on a low shore leaning out over still water, soft mountains beyond.
1Leaning Toward the Water
A great dark pyramidal mountain streaked with snow under a heavy sky.
2The Mountain Keeps Its Own Counsel
A single bare tree in a vast expanse of pale still water, almost nothing else.
3Where the World Thins Out
A dark mountain rising over a plain, a small living thing at its foot.
4Life at the Foot of Majesty
A lone bare tree standing apart on open ground under a wide sky.
5Far From the Others
A wind-bent tree on a slope, its trunk and exposed roots wrenched to one side.
6Shaped by Everything That Tried to Break It
A windswept tree standing alone on a pale dune under dramatic light.
7Holding the Field Until Morning
Layered mountains half-dissolved in fog, their ridgelines barely showing.
8What the Fog Let Me See
A small dark island carrying a few wind-shaped trees in still water.
9Its Own Small Island
A lone bare tree on the edge of a dark ridge above pale emptiness.
10Where the Land Runs Out
A dark tree silhouetted at night with a bright moon caught in its branches.
11Still Awake When the Others Sleep
A small tree at a shoreline where pale light gives way to a dark sky.
12Desolation

IIWhat the Water Holdsstill water as mirror and grave — the drowned, the reflected, the dyads across water

Dark mountains held in a perfectly still mirror of water.
13Where the Water Goes Quiet
A slab of ice breaking up through the flat surface of the water.
14The Birds Know
A vast expanse of smooth pale sand under a low misty sky, a flat-topped hill faint on the far shore.
15Landsand
A low tree split into two trunks against a bright low sun, a smaller tree beyond.
16Grown Together, Pulling Apart
A dark line of bare winter woods meeting a wide pale clearing, one bare tree standing out in front.
17The Forest's Edge
Jagged spires of dark sand or mud left standing by the receded tide.
18What the Tide of Time Left
Two trees on opposite shores across a stretch of pale golden water.
19When the Water Names the Tree
A bare tree lying low across the ground, its branches spread where it came down.
20The Fallen
A small island holding two trees close together in still water.
21The Two That Stayed Together
A tree bowed low over still water, mirrored in a golden reflection.
22Leaning Out Over the Last of the Light
A dark root-monolith stranded in misty water, a bright pale wound in its side.
23The Stranded
A tree on a rock, its bared roots gripping the stone above the water.
24The Roots Come Up for Air

IIIThe Exposed Rootthe underground hauled into the light — root-mounds, world-trees, the cracked earth

Large rounded dark boulders rising from pale misty water, a low spit of stone leading toward them.
25The Boulders
A single monumental bare tree standing in flat still water, alone.
26The Alone Tree
Dead trees scattered across a desolate dark plain below distant mountains.
27A Country No One Mapped
A bare tree raised on a mound of exposed roots, like a throne of roots.
28Everything That Held It Up
A dark pyramid mountain over a shore where bright channels of water thread through wet sand.
29Wet
A rooted tree on cracked dry lakebed, a smaller tree far behind it.
30The Outlived
A great tree spread on a wide fan of bared roots over pale ground.
31The Wide-Rooted
A low tangle of old root on a small island with a young tree beside it.
32What Was Left, and What Came After
A small dark island holding the last of a forest under a dramatic sky.
33The Marooned
A large bent tree on a plain with a second, broken tree beyond.
34You for Me
A rocky coast standing exposed to mist and weather over the water.
35The Origins
A row of jagged stone fins rising like teeth from the water.
36Where the Coast Bared Its Teeth

IVWhat the Hand Lefthuman trace without the human — ruins, towers, boats, cairns, the standing stones

A bare tree on rocks beside a crumbling stone ruin under a dark sky.
37The Watch
Weathered upright posts standing in a tidal flat like a henge.
38The Standing
A faint, distant structure on the water, half-lost in mist.
39Untitled I
The bare ribs of a wrecked boat rising from misty shallow water.
40The Long Wait
Stacked stones standing in the fog like cairns left behind.
41Someone Stacked These and Walked Away
A cluster of dark rock stacks gathered in the water near a misty shore.
42The Congregation
A small rock in misty water carrying a solitary mark.
43Someone Marked This Place, and Left
An old derelict boat hull resting on still water below mountains.
44The Derelict
Two smooth marbled stones come to rest together atop a dark rock, misty sea and a far wooded point beyond.
45Seaview
A grounded boat run up on a beach under a dramatic sky.
46The Grounded
A row of stones standing in still water at the edge below the hills.
47The Mountain and the Shore
Stones gathered in still water at the foot of a misty mountain.
48In Memory of the Fallen

VThe Land Made Fleshthe imagined and figural close — the human emerges; solitude resolving into the one warm pair

Rippled, bone-pale dune ridges carved smooth by water.
49The Land Worn Down to Bone
A large rooted tree on a dark rise, a figure all but grown into it.
50He Took Root and Could Not Leave
A wrapped, nameless form risen in the dark of a mountain valley.
51Two Forms with No Name
Pale glowing forms rising from dark water like figures come up out of it.
52The Risen
A close view of weathered wood with a single eye open in the grain.
53The Eye
An abstract curved form with a slow spiral of light in the dark.
54They Stood Where No One Else Did
A gaunt vertical form like a doorway, opening onto nothing.
55The Threshold
A windswept tree beside a tall veiled figure standing in the fog.
56Left to Mourn the Felled
Three bare trees spaced apart on a dark ridge, none of them touching.
57The Three
A lone veiled figure among standing stones in the cold mist.
58Holding Himself Against the Cold
A single figure standing alone in a falling shaft of light in the dark.
59Inside
Two small figures beneath two trees on a ridge in the last misty light.
60Where Two Sat to Watch the Light Go