Mark Kelly explores the feeling given to him by the alarming rate of land clearing: that many trees have been removed and all that remains are ghosts of the past.

Kelly’s favourite photographic subjects are trees, rocks and clouds. The artist loves the juxtaposition of relative time. Rocks are effectively permanent, clouds are a momentary existence, and trees are somewhere in between.

One foggy morning, Kelly had been photographing trees and enjoying the graceful forms and the ethereal mood. The idea of land clearing had occurred to the artist, but not how best to convey the feeling. The thought to present work almost as the camera captured it was simply not an option. Discovering a new way of applying blur along a user-defined curve became the catalyst Kelly needed to create the effect sought after.

All trees used in the final composition were captured on the same day. Once Kelly created the first composition, the technique was refined and applied to other images, soon resulting in a series. The black and white treatment conveys the ghostly spectres of trees from the past. For Kelly, monochrome images are imperative in conveying this mood.

Kelly was the winner of the 2018 Goulburn Art Award.