Nostalgic Mountains – Aftermath （Mount Hehuan）

Part of Huang Tse-hsiu's? "High Mountains, Ancient Affections"? series, the 1963 photo was taken on Hehuan Mountain. Once the site of pristine forest, a fire or another cause turned the mountainside into a wasteland. (Naturally occurring fires are a common phenomenon at altitudes of over 3,000 meters in Taiwan's mountain regions; a similar spot on Yushan (Jade Mountain) is known as "the white woods," because the dead trees turn white after a fire). Here the remaining "white trees" are the photographer's subjects; the desolate hillside, with patches of snow here and there, and the dark, daytime sky serve as background. A live tree in the left foreground and a dead tree farther up and to the right are set against the horizon, forming an intriguing H-shaped configuration, a compositional structure seldom found in landscape photos.