Tree in Front of My Window

Making of the Diptyc

Sometimes an image begins with a thought.
Or with a single line that slowly unfolds.

For me, it was a verse by Rainer Maria Rilke —
one that speaks of giving a tree inner space —
not the space out there, but the one within us.

So it was about a tree.
Not just any tree, but the one I might allow into the image
if I were ready to give it that inner space.

I visited many trees in my thoughts:
the old yew nearby,
a tree from an earlier portrait session,
the quiet companions of my walks in nature.

And then, the next morning — before getting up —
a glance through the roof window. And there it was.
The tree before my window.
It had been there for ten years.
And I had never truly seen it.

And suddenly I felt:
In that long, wordless encounter, something had happened.
Something of the tree was in me. And something of me in the tree.

That’s how this work came into being.
Not as a depiction — but as a trace of relationship.

Two images, two perspectives — and in between, the space.

A tree. A window.
And the circles drawn by rain.
Diptych with tree behind a rain-covered window – photography of the moment