Giant Willow Oak Format: Paperback

A poetic photographic exploration of a single willow oak, Giant Willow Oak is a meditation on time, light, and our enduring connection to nature.

Giant Willow Oak by Amanda Sauer is an intimate meditation on time, nature, and our relationship with the living world. Through a series of deeply contemplative photographs, Sauer documents her years-long engagement with a single majestic willow oak in Washington, D.C. This tree, a towering presence in the U.S. National Arboretum, becomes a silent witness to the passing of seasons and shifting light. Sauer’s approach is both scientific and poetic—she circles the tree counterclockwise, mirroring the Earth's rotation, creating an orbit of reverence and discovery. The resulting images capture the subtle transformations of bark, leaves, and shadow, revealing the quiet power of patient observation. Handcrafted with exquisite attention to detail, Giant Willow Oak is not just a photographic study but a lyrical homage to endurance, change, and the profound presence of trees in our collective memory. A testament to the interplay between nature and artistic vision.

Amanda Sauer makes photographs and books to visualize time and re-imagine relationships with the natural world. She works in response to place, often over many years, using repetition to invite chance and bear witness to environmental change. Her work is influenced by her previous career in climate change research and policy where she published on environmental topics. Amanda is a recipient of 2019 - 2025 Artist Fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and her work has been collected by the DC ArtBank, the Museum of Modern Art Library, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts Hirsch Library, and Yale University Library. Her artist book, Giant Willow Oak, was shortlisted for the PhMuseum’s Dummy 24 award and will be published by L’Artiere Edizioni in 2025. Amanda is a professor at Northern Virginia Community College where she teaches darkroom and large format photography. She has an MFA in Photography and Film from Virginia Commonwealth University and a BA in economics from Cornell University. Amanda lives with her family in Washington DC.