Dermot Russell Captures The Emptiness And Essence Of Tuscany

Captivated by the Tuscan landscape on the cusp of a new season, Dublin-based photographer Dermot Russell captured a series of photographs that focus on the Mediterranean cypress trees famous to the Italian region.

Russell set out with the intention to shoot Tuscany’s autumn scenery after harvest, when the land has as he describes, “Fluid-like characteristics”. Whilst there, Russell had an epiphany about how human beings assign meaning to photographs. Although his images don’t have a clear foreground or background, Russell asserts that the moment had a presence and communicated something important to him. “Even though there was no obvious composition, [the images] still had cohesion”, he says. “This was a surprise to me”. The photographer noted that in the absence of a subject, the eye will instead create one; which speaks to our desire to “Seek patterns, shapes, and things that we can relate to. As such we can see meaning, even when there is no obvious meaning”, he explains. Accordingly, the words that best epitomize the series to Russell are emptiness and essence. “The scene is empty of subject, but it communicates the essence”.

All images © Dermot Russell