Forests, according to folklore, are places of mystery and fear the haunts of fierce animals and fiercer men. Yet for our ancestors the forests were sources of food and fuel, managed spaces. The forest of Pen Gelli in Wales was used by charcoal burners in the Iron Age and after, while Strata Florida served the needs of a Cistercian Abbey: the maple forests of Vermont reclaimed land used until the 19th century for sheep-farming. In these forests photographer Pete Davis has been exploring the dichotomy in forest fact and fable for over a decade, marking the changes worked by time, weather and human intervention. This is not a vision of the green splendour or the dark mystery of the forest, but rather the intimacy and subtlety marked by change and time.

With an appreciation by Conway Lloyd Morgan