Capturing abstraction in nature, both physical and atmospheric, is the essence of my work. I search for moments when the natural world appears changed, distilled down to color, form and light. I invite the viewer to experience the same sense of discovery. Tess Atkinson’s work centers on nature, most specifically when nature takes on a subtle abstraction. In the spring of 2011 Tess began her longest running series, her Flora series, which centers on capturing the fragile and temporary beauty of cherry blossoms and dogwood trees. Tess has been returning over time and seasons to a particular dogwood tree in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for which she has created a series of studies. Trees bear witness to many transitory moments and continue their own tale through time. Her images express the beauty and transient quality of these ephemeral moments for this singular tree. Trees are forever changing and desperately fragile. Tess strives to show their unfolding beauty and draw attention to this fragility and need for preservation.Tess also focuses her attention on seascapes and landscapes which she calls Lightscapes. She studied art history in college and worked for a decade at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her art history studies and work in museums deeply influence her photography. Her Lightscape series found its inspiration in the work of James Abbott McNeill Whistler, the 19th century painter, who was born in America but worked for many years in England. While working in London starting in the 1860s, Whistler painted scenes on the Thames at night. He called these paintings, Nocturnes, originally a musical term but one he used to represent “a dreamy, pensive mood.” It is specifically Whistler’s Nocturne, “Blue and Silver: Battersea Reach,” about 1872-1878, in the collection of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum that inspired Tess’s Lightscapes. Her goal is to convey this dream-like, painterly quality in her Lightscapes. Tess has traveled to many countries seeking these dreamy scenes where colors appear to wash over the photograph.