Ever since first stumbling upon this spot this past February this scene has been pretty special to me for a few reasons. For one, it is rare to stumble upon such a scene in Korea, and for another one of my luckiest moments as a landscape photographer was experienced right in this spot so it was a little disconcerting when I noticed a few weeks ago that quite a few of the needles on this tree were turning brown. I figured it was probably just from lack of recent rain so this past weekend I came up here to watch the meteor shower and, thinking every bit might help, brought up an extra liter of water to spread around the roots. Well, much to my surprise, in a few short weeks the entire tree has simply dried up either from environmental stress or perhaps a beetle infestation. I know in the grand scheme of things one tree is no more meaningful than another and just because this tree was particularly photogenic doesn’t make it any more important than any countless other trees that succumb to a similar fate. Nonetheless it will be sad to watch this tree go and I hope I will be able to document the change that this scene goes through over the coming months. Oh well, sometimes that’s nature for you eh/
Life and Death
