Along Sourdough Trail

Not by accident, I’ve had another meeting with the deer. Paying more attention now, I’ve learned a little about how they operate. For example, the females communicate the presence of a potentially dangerous intruder with a loud snort. They are bolder and investigate more closely; the males hang back until the way is clear. If spooked, they retreat, but may return soon if there’s no further alarm. There seems to be a real curiosity, and they will approach nearer than necessary for route reconnaissance.

Perhaps because these photographs show living creatures, they seem to easily suggest stories, particularly—thanks to the gaze—stories of encounters with the implied photographer. I myself can easily conjure stories from any tree or leaf, but I suspect that’s harder for most people. At any rate, reading Wim Wenders and Paul Graham, and discussing elsewhere on the web, I’m thinking that the impact of a picture can be due as much or more to ability to evoke a story as to aesthetic impression. And the meaning of a place has much to do with the stories that we live or hear of or imagine there.

I don’t know whether an encounter with another species is more or less powerful than one with our own. Both can run deep. Certainly the friend who came on three mountain lions will never forget it (that was not on Sourdough Trail, though sightings have been claimed this month even closer to town). But when the other species is a plant, without a mind we can imagine, it scarcely seems a character to be met with. And yet: it has a presence and a history and a life force, it may be well known even if nameless.

Or is it better to say, such quieter encounters are more encounters with ourselves? Curiously, I find that at those moments I photograph, I might either be more aware of myself, or much less so—much more intent on something else. A rough-barked tree might capture my attention as long as a deer. I contemplate the tree. I consider it in relation to myself. Mostly, I appreciate visually that deep, dark scarring of a smoother surface. There could be many stories here. They seem to have a power without ever being told.

I never feel alone in the woods, though often there’s no one else around. There’s quite a bit of animal life along Sourdough Trail. Some is seasonal, like the turtles I’m now encountering. And this fall will likely bring the occasional black bear foraging close to town. When you know—or even suspect—that a bear’s about, every noise in the brush has an edge to it, and your visual awareness is likewise heightened. But most of the time, throughout the year, the largest animals are deer.

I don’t see a deer every visit by any means, but they are common enough that I treated them as unremarkable, and seldom even considered photographing them. That was partly due to casually classifying myself as a landscape photographer, not a wildlife photographer. Small-minded yet justified, perhaps, by finding far more than I could manage even within that category. Narrowness can be a strength, or even a necessity. At any rate, it’s clear that the animals belong to this place I am exploring and are therefore subject. Furthermore, this unusually curious deer, appearing as I walked a northern boundary one morning, deliberately approached to within ten feet and fairly demanded a picture.

You may notice the stronger toning of these images, akin to thiocarbamide toning in the darkroom. It changes from purplish in the low register to orangish in the mid-to-high range. The second image of the deer at the fence being generally lighter, it acquires a very different overall cast from the preceding one. I’m finding the look somewhat artificial, but also mysterious in a way that seems to suit my skittish examiner.