Wintering explores the season as a metaphor for the inner life — for those periods of withdrawal, stillness and quiet renewal that visit us as surely as winter visits the landscape. In visual dialogue with Katherine May's Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, the series proposes that fallow periods are not failures but necessities — that winter carries within it the promise of new beginnings.
Wingfield photographs winter trees in the English landscape: frost-covered branches, copper leaves clinging against white snow, groves standing quietly in frozen fields. Stripped of their verdant clothing, the intricate architecture of their branches is revealed. Luminous and full of quiet life, the trees embody a patient resilience — evidence that even in the depth of winter, something is working, preparing and enduring.
The hush of winter is deceptive. Each tree is quietly engaged in a process of renewal. The pulse of life beats more slowly during winter, and yet gathers strength for spring. Beneath the apparent stillness of the season, healing and growth continue unseen. Wintering invites us to trust that rhythm and to recognise our own fallow periods as seasons of preparation, renewal and possibility.
As Albert Camus wrote:
"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer."