AR 1 - Water, Trees, and New Growth

On the east end of the trail, right at mile marker 3.25, there is a swampy, wooded area that usually stays wet during the winter and spring months. The small, slender trees sit in calm water, and the near-perfect reflections are almost disorienting for a moment as your mind tries to interpret where the break between reflected tree and real tree exists.

Things are greening-up as new growth is finally emerging this spring. This includes these lush lily-like plants that have sprouted out of the water.

click for larger image

On the photo-side of things, I discovered something interesting. Yesterday was my first official photo-walk and the start of this project. But I've walked twice before this week.

On the previous two walks, I thought out and planned this project as I exercised. I also practiced a seeing-exercise: basically looking for interesting subjects, as I walked along, and then pre-visualizing a photo.

On these previous walks, it seemed so easy to identify things that I wanted to shoot. I was able to spot all sorts of interesting plants, trees, bugs, etc.

But on the walk yesterday, my first walk with a camera, a bit of anxiety hit me. Suddenly I felt a rush to start shooting... something, anything. And I realized something.

That anxiety is exactly what I feel when I first get out into the field for some serious photography (in Big Bend, for example). Usually, those "serious sessions" start after not having photographed for some time. It then takes me a day or so to get back into the photographic swing of things and start feeling creative and productive.

This anxiety bugged me and hampered my creative thoughts for about two miles, but by the end of the first two miles I fixated on it and was able to finally get my creative thoughts flowing again. The simple act of identifying the anxiety and gaining a perspective on it allowed me to quiet my thoughts.

In the last 2 miles, I was able to slip back into the creative thought process that I'd experienced on the previous walks I'd done this week without a camera in hand, and I was again seeing interesting subjects one after the other.