Artwork made by the polymer photogravure process.

Special 1/25 edition

Hand painted and printed over japanese paper and Hahnemühle graphic paper. 2022

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I was searching for a Sentinel pine in Madrid to feel like Ansel Adams, and I found the so-called "Lonesome pine". A single pine, standing alone, the sole survivor of two massive fires (both provoked), one in the XIX century and the second during the Spanish Civil War. It is in fact the sentinel of the valley of Guadarrama and a painful reminder of human negative and irreversible impact in nature. It is around 30 meters tall, 6m of diameter and probably has 350 years, and you can find it in the hillside of La Peñota, at 1600m of hight.

The shot was taken with a 9 step ND filter because I wanted to catch as much time as possible, not only to because it would resemble and tell us a more accurate story of the San Roque Pine (aka lonesome pine); but also because I wanted to understand the sight of the tree. What would the pine see? How would it feel to see trough its eyes? Standing there, still, alone, as clouds, days and decades passed by.
This Pine is a symbol of resistance that has captivated so much the locals the even had integrated it in the Municipality shield.
To me it is a sign of resistance and an environmentalist statement by itself, specially now that the original Sentinel, so beautifully portrayed by Ansel Adams, its dried and dead. It's also a statement of how loneliness can sometimes be a sign of rising beauty.

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