Halfway through a month long canoe trip in the Arctic I lost my reflex cameras and lenses in a capsizing. I was left with a rangefinder camera, one lens, and a little film. Photography seemed finished. But in the weeks that followed I found my limited equipment caused me to see differently: I became interested in linking picture elements and through that linkage finding a new way to photograph landscapes.

One dull afternoon I came upon a solitary tree left by spring flood waters on the now-dry river delta. I made three exposures, finally concentrating the composition in such a way that the elements of the photograph were slightly abstracted and the relationships between them transformed.