Posts Tagged ‘forest’
Winter woods reflected in pond
Copperfield Nature Trail; January 17th.
© 2021 Steven Schwartzman
Muir Woods National Monument
Four years ago today we drove along Muir Woods Rd. north of San Francisco, where I stopped in the cloud forest to take pictures of the lichen- and moss-covered trees.
Then we pushed on to the Muir Woods National Monument, which the other pictures in this post show.
I’d rather not have visited such a popular place on a weekend. That said, when you’re traveling you can’t afford to sit out two days, so thither we went on a Saturday morning.
With judicious aiming and timing I managed to keep my pictures free from all traces of the crowds.
I was sorry to hear that on Christmas Eve in 2019 a man walking in this park was killed when a redwood tree fell on him.
Related quotation for today: “When we try to pick out anything by itself we find that it is bound fast by a thousand invisible cords that cannot be broken, to everything in the universe.” — John Muir in his journal in 1869. In 1911 he offered a shorter version in My First Summer in the Sierra: “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” In addition to those two authentic quotations, various incorrect versions circulate on the Internet.
© 2020 Steven Schwartzman
Reptile-textured tree stump remains
This reptile-textured tree stump fascinated me in
John Bryan State Park near Yellow Springs, Ohio, on July 21.
© 2019 Steven Schwartzman
Two pointy things of different size
A mound in the forest at John Bryan State Park near Yellow Springs, Ohio, on July 21 made me think I was looking once again at the ruins of a Mayan pyramid that the Central American jungle had reclaimed.
The green on this drying leaf I found when we were about to leave the park seemed unaccountably vivid.
© 2019 Steven Schwartzman
Perspectives
On April 21st, in the broad V between Scotland Well Dr. and Spicewood Springs Rd., I walked beside and through parts of a tributary of Bull Creek. People who don’t live in Austin, along with some who do, are surprised to learn that we have landscapes like this, which many associate with forests much further north. In the first image, the tree that had fallen completely across the creek became my main object of interest.
As a photographer I often present a scene from different viewpoints. In this case I walked forward from where I took the first picture, stepped over the downed tree, and became fascinated by the algae that the creek’s current swept into long strands that warranted the vertical orientation of the second photograph. I took both pictures with my lens zoomed all the way out to 24mm to encompass as much of each scene as possible.
If you’re interested in the craft of photography, the newly added point 31 in About My Techniques pertains to these two pictures.
© 2019 Steven Schwartzman
Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve
Two years ago on this date we spent several hours in the temperate rainforest
of the Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve near Guerneville, California.
Intermittent rain accompanied us there. During rainless periods the lace lichen,
Ramalina menziesii, still suggested its own sort of precipitation from the trees.
Even when fresh, bits of lace lichen end up on the forest floor, there to perish.
© 2018 Steven Schwartzman
Emerald Lake shore
A year ago today we (and many other people) visited Emerald Lake in British Columbia’s Yoho National Park. The smoke from forest fires dulled views of the surrounding mountains, as you see above, so for some pictures of the lake I aimed closer in. As an example of that approach take the second photograph, which plays up the tall trees while still allowing the color of the lake to come through.
The low plants along the water in the photograph above are sedges. Below is a close view of one taken from the shore looking back the opposite way. In “La Belle Dame sans Merci” Keats mentioned this type of plant:
And to counteract the pallor of any pale loiterers among you, here are some fireweed flowers (Chamaenerion angustifolium) that also grew close to the shore.
© 2018 Steven Schwartzman
Previously burned forest
Intermittent fires are a part of the life cycle in forests. Here’s a view of previously burned woods in Glacier National Park, Montana, a year ago today. The smoke in the air came from fires currently burning, and days later authorities had to close parts of the park because of the danger. Below is an eerie, smokier scene from the previous day, also in Glacier National Park, showing Clements Mountain.
© 2018 Steven Schwartzman
Mount Katahdin
I’ve been reading Laura Dassow Walls’s recent biography of Thoreau. Near halfway through comes an account of Thoreau’s 1846 visit to Mount Katahdin, which at 5267 ft. (1605m) is the highest point in the state of Maine: “From Quakish Lake they got their first glimpse of Mount Katahdin*, still twenty miles away, its summit veiled in clouds.”
On June 2nd of this year, driving north on Interstate 95, we took the pullout for a scenic view of the mountain. Unfortunately, as you can see in the photograph, we had the same experience Thoreau originally did, and the summit remained obscured by clouds. Oh well, maybe another time. No clouds obscured my view of some birch trees (Betula papyrifera, I believe) adjacent to the pullout’s parking lot. Given the briskness of the breeze, I used a shutter speed of 1/500 of a second to keep the leaves from blurring yet still let them convey a sense of the wind.
* By a curious coincidence, in the evening on the same day that I updated the draft of this post to include the information about Thoreau, we watched an unrelated documentary I’d taken out of the library. As the introductory credits appeared, we saw that the company that had made the documentary was Katahdin Productions.
© 2018 Steven Schwartzman
New Zealand: Manginangina
A year ago today in New Zealand’s Northland we visited the Manginangina Scenic Reserve, which is a good place to see the native bush that once covered much of the country.
Behold the distinctive branches of a young rimu tree (Dacrydium cupressinum):
As a photographer fond of abstractions, I particularly enjoyed the self- and lichen-mottled bark of a kauri tree (Agathis australis).
© 2018 Steven Schwartzman
Portraits of Wildflowers 