I took a walk down to the river this morning. That's not such an usual thing. Being just a half mile away, a walk like that is a common occurrence. There were a couple exposures left on a roll of film in my Holga, so I figured I'd finish it off, and had another spare roll along to use as well. I won't go into the detail about how the last exposures on the one roll and the first three on the next were overexposed because, well, I got mixed up between my B and N settings (hmmm...just went into detail on that anyway, huh?). I will say, I took the path less traveled (for me) and got myself closer down to the water in slightly wilder areas than those with which I'm familiar.
The pathways were littered with leaves and autumn has just barely started. In another month or two the debris will be ankle deep, I'm sure. It smells different down there now too. In the summer the air was heavy, earthy and green. Now, while not crisp, the scent seems lighter and drier with just a tinge of decay (in a good way) setting in.
By the time I got to where the accompanying images are from, I'd used up all my film. The forms from these trees fascinated me, however, so my iphone came in handy (like, duh, of course!). Thinking about it now, it would've been interesting to use the Hipstamatic app with the tintype setting...and I may go back and do just that. In any case, it was wonderfully cool to observe a sort of above and below perspective on the trees. When the level of the river rises, most of the root systems are completely submerged. Being that this is the drier time of year, how those roots connect to the trunk and also hold on to the earth can easily be observed. I'm struck by the sense of tenacity, connectedness and strength that's expressed in these trees. I think about how long they've been growing at the river's edge and how many times the water has ridden up and down their bodies. And I think about how the stresses of that continual change has given them character. It doesn't take long to make a metaphor that applies to my own life...the lives of all of us humans.
Comments