'Arbour Ardour - for the love of trees' by Mary Jo Bedford

In this body of work, as with much of her oeuvre, Mary Jo has utilized a pictorialist style to convey her emotional responses to nature. That response is in part drawn from her well of past experiences of life, death and renewal.

Alfred Stieglitz in his publication “Camera Work” encouraged Pictorialist photography that emulated painting and etching. This predominantly soft focus approach was criticized by many photographers of the time such as Edward Weston and Ansel Adams whose ethos was
that the medium was better suited to showing the fine details in things. Their method of photography corresponds with much contemporary practice, where rapidly advancing digital technology dominates, often resulting in perfect yet banal imagery, an aspersion that was often
directed at Weston and Adams and their group f64.

In order to better communicate her personal story Mary Jo has seceded, like generations of photographers before her, from currently popular practices.

- Doc Ross