Many artists photograph nature forits beauty and strong contrasts.Margaret McAdams is drawn totrees because of the way they withstandtime, how their trunks are anchored inthe earth, and because no two are alike.

McAdams, a professor of art at Ohio University’s Chillicothe campus, always felt a connection with nature but has made art her life’s work. Her recent project, photographing old-growth trees in the United States and Europe, has given her the best of both worlds.

The photographer’s interest in ancient trees bloomed about five years ago when she was using her Nikon 35 mm camera to photograph prehistoric megaliths in Europe. “The megaliths have this kind of imposing, strong form, and I see these ancient trees as also having that impact and form,” she says. “The only difference is they are living.”

McAdams became interested in how well panoramic cameras worked with landscapes. She bought a relatively inexpensive Russian panoramic called a Horizon and began photographing the trees during a two-month residency in Paris.

Just like wrinkles show the history of a person’s face, the trunk best captures the history of the tree, says McAdams, who rarely photographs the trees above the trunk.“I really want to get close to the tree,” she says. “It’s really about how massive the trunk is and the space of the earth around it.”

Fascinated with the colossal trees in Europe, McAdams wanted to see if the United States could offer the same impressive trees. “I had never seen trees that huge here in this country,” she says.“I was determined to find them here.”

Last winter the search for old-growth trees took her to North Carolina. While in her home state she visited the Joyce Kilmer Forest and its impressive foliage. In the spring she returned to Ohio and shot the collection of old-growth trees in Dysart Woods. She moved on to photograph the large banyan trees with trunks that resemble a collection of unraveling ropes and the fat-trunk historical trees in Martha’s Vineyard. The pursuit moved west to California, where McAdams photographed the redwoods, sequoias, and bristlecone pines, which are her favorite.

McAdams, who still has many rolls of film from the California forests to develop, has exhibited many of the photographs around the state, including at the National Juried Exhibition in Toledo, Ohio, and the Annual Appalachian Art and Craft Juried Exhibit in Zanesville, Ohio.

McAdams believes her work draws attention to the strong presence of the various trees she’s photographed. “I think there is a power to their form,” says the photographer, who hopes her audience will view the trees not only as a part of nature, but as pieces of art.

For more information about Ohio University’s Chillicothecampus, visit the Web at http://www.ohiou.edu/chillicothe/.