Barbed

The photographer beside me thought this scene was ugly. I remember looking at the same tangle of branches and feeling completely the opposite. Here was everything I look for in a photograph: a living creature woven so deeply into its surroundings that the setting became part of its story.

Through the lattice of pale limbs and rust-coloured needles, the bear lifts his muzzle. Much of his immense body is concealed, his presence revealed in fragments. My eye follows a branch, finds a line of fur, loses it, then discovers him again. There is something deeply moving to me about having to look this carefully.

The sharp, barbed appearance of the branches gives the image its tension. Their brittle intricacy surrounds the softness and weight of his coat, while the hanging needles repeat its texture and colour. What might first appear tangled becomes beautifully coherent. This is one of the images I feel most attached to because it holds the bear within the complexity of his own world. Every branch belongs to the portrait.