Today we welcome back the work of photographer Maroula Blades who describes her images — Leaf, Moody Pond, and Tree King — below.
I took the picture, Leaf, in December 2023, just after I entered the Hahneberg (Berlin-Staaken) grounds. On seeing the leaf with its striking colors and intricate details, it fascinated me, and I held it in between my hands to get a closer look. After which, I took the image. The name Hahneberg refers to two heights in the southeast of the Berlin neighborhood of Staaken in the borough of Spandau: the new Hahneberg, which was intentionally made to be 87.6 metres above sea level, and the old Hahneberg, which was 67 metres high before the Fort Hahneberg was built there.
In October 2023, I had an outing to Falkenstein Castle (German Burg Falkenstein) where on the grounds, I took the photograph Moody Pond. The color of the pond fascinated me; it looked like a magical place. Falkenstein Castle is a German hill castle in the Harz Mittelgebirge (Harz low mountain range), dating to the High Middle Ages. The castle is in the town of Falkenstein, between Aschersleben and Harzgerode. Beautiful ancient woodlands surround it.
I visited Delapré Abbey in Northampton, England in July 2023. While driving down the grounds’ road towards the abbey, I saw this amazing tree with an uncanny aura about it. The tree almost appeared to be a living organism, quite haunting in its presence which seemed to dominate that part of the abbey’s park. I felt compelled to get out of the car and climb over the wooden fence to capture the image, which I titled, Tree King.
Delapré Abbey is a neo-classical mansion. The mansion and outbuildings incorporate the remains of a former monastery, the Abbey of St. Mary de la Pré (the suffix meaning “in or of the Meadow”). The founders established the Abbey of St Mary de la Pré, near the River Nene, 1 mile (1.6 km) south-south-east of Northampton, as a nunnery around the year 1145, and they devoted it to the congregation of the major Abbey of Cluny in Burgundy, France. Once a site of the advance of the Yorkists during the Battle of Northampton (1460), the Abbey’s expansive, sloping grounds now serve as a nationally protected Wars of the Roses battlefield.
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