Along Sourdough Trail

They said two days ago the rivers were cresting, but I’m sure the water was higher today yesterday. The flow must be at least 10 times what it was a week ago. At Limestone Creek the approach trail was under water. So was most of what I’m calling Limestone point, once I’d made my way there, feet still dry thanks to various trunks and branches that made serviceable (though slippery) boardwalks.

This whole neck of the woods had become a swamp, and delightful it was. The shallowest puddle has a reflective surface, and even a gray day—in fact, better a gray day—offers all sorts of visual play. The carpet of leaf litter was visible not in the light, but only in reflections too dark to show their source.

I was surprised by a patch of bright sky lying in the bend of an inundated path.

Intervening branches cross-hatched ghostly echoes in an overflow stream course.

The artistic significance of the water was the opportunity to explore the emotional influence of texture. Locating the focus at the water, beyond it at reflected elements, or before it at the nearest objects, allows manipulation of the viewer’s attention. Though technically similar to the depth of field experiment discussed before, there seems to be a difference in that those images were easy to read, appearing quite plausible even if slightly unusual. Reflections tend to be more of a surprise; we’re startled by some discrepancy and it takes us a moment to figure out the spatial relationships. The first impression can be surreal, like tree trunks with the texture of leaves, or a clear sky on a dirt path.

Is it always the unexpected that leads to new awareness? At any rate, I can say that the spots pictured above I will see differently from now on. They each have a memory attached that didn’t exist before, and wouldn’t now if I didn’t enjoy gray days and walking on logs, and if it hadn’t snowed and rained like it has here lately.