My offering today is an abstraction from a memory, or two. First, several months ago in the Santa Ynez Valley I had viewed parts of that area ravaged by the Thomas Fire. All the leaves had been burned off and the colors were reduced to ashes of gray and black. The trees that were left looked like  dark apparitions. Those visuals have held a permanent place in my mind. Fast forward to now. I have always enjoyed taking walks with my camera in the park area near my residence. When I was a child I would often find myself riding my bike in this area and decades ago this acreage had been an avocado and orange orchard lined with large eucalyptus trees that were used for windbreaks. These same trees exist there today. With the light changing dramatically during the day it’s always fun to take walks at different times of the day. This day I had not only walked at a different time of day but a different direction as well, revealing and illuminating the decades old tree trunk for me. The texture and pattern of a close up of this tree trunk caught my attention. On closer inspection the pealing bark revealed a pattern very similar to my memory of the burned trees in the aforementioned fire. The line and tone, the contrast and pattern showed to me the link, and this image called out to me to be created in black & white. With only slight cropping and processing the association for me to the dark ghost like trees I had viewed months before was complete. Memory is a funny thing, sometimes it plays tricks on you, sometimes it gives you a gift. Months ago I had not stopped the car to photograph the burned trees, but this day walking, I created a new image from the memory.