Down to the Bare Bones......again.

Now that almost all the leaves have fallen, leaving only a smattering of bleached beech leaves that will still be there in the early spring, the landscape is fully revealed.  It is a time of year that frustrates me as a photographer because everywhere I look I see the trunks and branches of the trees and shrubbery, and they make amazingly fine textured filigree designs.  But, when I try to put a lens on them and bring those designs to a two-dimensional plane....they mostly fall flat.  I have still--after four decades of trying--not figured out why this is so.

At one point in the 90s I even took-up large format photography, went out and bought a Toyo 4 x 5 field camera, and all the attendant accessories, but still was not satisfied with what I was able to capture.  Perhaps I am just being a spoiled brat of a photographer....expecting something with the impact of more dramatic landscape images where, in actuality, what exists and calls out to me, is very quiet, subtle and much less accessible.


But, in the end, all images captured with a camera will fall short of capturing what was in front of you at the moment the photograph was made.  I think that what appeals to me is the soft colors and gentle light, bathing a frothy landscape of weeds, brush and bare trees against a sky that forebodes the coming of winter.

This is an image of a marsh that I drive past on my way to Portland.  And, it is telling me of the fleeting seasons. Click on it to see it larger.