Log Stack

Chalk X marks cross the cut faces of several logs in a tightly stacked woodpile, each end exposing a different diameter, tone and ring pattern. One large pale log near the top shows a clean cut and tight, evenly spaced growth rings. Others carry radial cracks and patches of rough dark bark still clinging to the edges, the bark peeling back where the grain shows through.

Brett photographed this stack in central Japan on 4 May 2016, on the Nikon D810 with a 14-24mm lens held close and flat to the cut faces. The Landscapes collection covers his wider travel photography across Australia and Japan rather than the abandoned-places work the Lost Collective is built on, and there is no history attached to a woodpile. The chalk marks are the point. They are a forester's or a mill's notation rather than decoration, and they suggest selective felling, individual trees distinguished before processing. Each cut face carries its own growth record, tight or loose, cracked or clean. The frame works on pattern and on surface: smooth pale heartwood, rough dark bark, radial cracks and chalk dust.