Closure Final ~ Alma Hurd

Alma L. Hurd Jr. is in his third year at Snow College. He has been centered around in the Outdoor Leadership and Entrepreneurship program at Snow where his love for the outdoors truly started to blossom. Alma grew up in a small town just outside of Aspen, Colorado.  Ever since he was young, he would  be playing outdoors and getting lost in the trees... Once, Alma was camping with his family and he made a fort in a jungle of aspen trees. His mom called him “Monkey boy,” because he was always hanging on trees and edges around the house. This is where the inspiration for his project came from. He wanted others to see more than a tree, but to be truly  lost in wonder, similarly to how he was as a little child. Aspen trees are a single-family unit. For miles their roots are connected together, which makes them strong for when the storms come, much like a family.

Alma took these images laying on the ground looking upwards at the sky. His hope was to capture a different viewpoint that would allow those observing his work to gain a new perspective on Aspen trees. He used a shutter speed of 1/160, a depth of field was 10, and ISO was at 400. This gave his pictures the angle needed to display the branches and make them pop against the sky. The black and white is to keep it simple and yet, make the trees mysteries.

When looking at the sky, the branches of the Aspen trees look like part of the nervous system inside the human body. The branches are always stretching outwards – such as a hand reaching for a loved one. Alma wanted to have others think deeply and dive into each individual picture, coming away with a new experience from each piece. With each photo there is a new and fun adventure around the corner.