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When I think of the four season motif my mind usually travels to wall scrolls, brush and ink and mass produced ‘Asian’ culture, though I have seen beautiful examples in museums, books and little shops in Vietnam. Here in the states the motif is certainly common enough, showing the seasons in heroic landscapes or scenes of country living, but I’ve always felt that four seasons really make no sense. In Maine for example they joke that there is a fifth season called Mud and I have lived on enough farms to agree. So here I offer an extended version of the seasons…..winter, first growth, full spring, first cutting/high summer, second cutting/late summer/first fall, high fall, there should be one more for end of fall/beginning of winter, but I couldn’t find one that suited. These were taken at the same location as the allee photos I posted yesterday. The trees are Pin Oaks, a good solid working man’s tree.

There is something about an allee – a tree lined path/road – that always makes me want to photograph it. I am in part pursuing a classic photograph I can only partially recall – black and white, grand old trees, trunks painted white, a narrow curving road, it must have been Europe and taken before 1970. But it is entirely possible that the photo doesn’t exist and I have combined several images in my mind to create the iconic photograph of an allee. These below are an example of my ruminating on allees and a bit of a poke at the classic four seasons images.