Along Sourdough Trail

I’m spending a fair amount of time along Sourdough Trail, but I’m spending it, for the most part, by and for myself. Despite maintaining this journal, I’m not primarily concerned with communicating about the place itself. Call it narcissism, but the emphasis has been more on me, specifically on me photographing, most precisely on me photographing in this particular spot. That does entail telling you a little about the place, but not to the extent that I’ve had to develop names.

Furthermore, my communication has been mostly visual. I don’t need to describe the snowy Watchman, standing just before the main bridge, because I can show him to you. And I don’t need to name him Watchman because I probably won’t be speaking of him again. In fact, I haven’t used that name even to myself before now—though he’s one of a set that I thought of loosely as Guardians when I first began photographing here.

Names are clearly needed for a full, communal understanding of place. Names carry meaning. There’s a world of difference between knowing a particular feature as, say, Flounder at the Base of the Creek (Dzántik’i Héeni in Tlingit) or as Gold Creek. In the present case, the fairly generic Sourdough Creek (there must be dozens in every western state) certainly has different associations from its other name of Bozeman Creek. But I’ll leave that social/historical thread for another time.

What I’m wondering now is what difference it might make, for me in my isolation, to create and use names. Does having a name make a feature more salient, more readily, even automatically, distinguished and noticed? Possibly. Still, an actual name seems superfluous. The Watchman stood out on my earliest visits, though he remained unpictured until snow fell. I notice him every time I walk that path. Similarly, I’ve always noticed, and thought of as a distinct entity, the long, nearly horizontal branch I have to duck under on a certain side path. I’ve wanted to photograph it, but haven’t seen the picture yet. Until now, it never occurred to me to give it a name, and I doubt I shall. (If I do, perhaps Long Arm…)

In many respects, at least for my own purposes, a photograph serves like a name. It singles out its subject, which thereafter remains a noticed quantity. For example, the Tangles I pictured late this spring, though noted in a general way before, will doubtless be more regularly observed in future.

A name is not mere shorthand, but adds some personal touch that’s a product of an individual mind, and that ties the named to other things, to the past. The photograph may also call up those associations, but perhaps not as surely and concisely and unfailingly over time. The haiku I wrote in the first phase of this project aimed to capture something along these lines, and I actually used them in place of titles for the photographs. Nevertheless, I think there’s a big difference between a haiku and a name. The haiku, by nature, represented unrepeatable moments. They don’t seem to carry the judgement, almost finality of a name. Recently, I’ve been reveling in changes more than continuities. The light on a leaf never falls the same way twice. Naming even that leaf is naming in vain.

The footpaths have been stream-free for two weeks, water flow is back to normal, and I’m still photographing leaves in sunlight from up close. I follow such tangents and inclinations if I can, just as I follow deer trails I come across. They often go interesting places, and are fun to explore in any case. There’s no chance of getting lost; they always return to a main path sooner or later. Besides, it’s all part of the program.

This particular tangent seems to be leading toward artistic thickets I’ve mostly skirted in the past. The charts just say, here be thorns. Those who have passed there, if they break silence, tend to speak in gibberish.

It’s the simplicity that does it. Complexity, when structured so as not to overwhelm, is brimming with interesting relationships. There is the appeal of a detective novel in working things out, observing and thinking them through. Rich meaning is possible. There is much one can fasten on.

But simplicity offers only the basics. What about this shape? These three shapes? Why should I look? There’s almost no information there. If I don’t like it for itself, there’s nothing.

It has to have beauty. Or something we may as well call beauty. So I’m learning what I find beautiful in simple shapes, simple relationships.

I’ve always loved the dark as well as the light, but haven’t previously thought much about the elemental transition from one to the other. It’s said a musician’s skill is not in hitting the right notes, but in the movement from each to the next. That’s the training I’m engaged in. Contrary to convention, I’m finding I like soft transitions, and especially transitions that vary from soft to hard along the edge of a shape. Hence my experimentation with focus. I also like mid-grays, particularly modulated ones standing out from their light or dark surroundings. I clearly have a long way to go at this.

Independent of any artistic theory or practice, working on such subjects has implications for one’s experience of a place. The fall of light on a leaf, especially if filtered through other leaves or trees, is constantly changing. Take a minute or two to watch for yourself. A scene that, in the large, has persistence and stability, possesses also a delightful flickering in the small, though it is hidden from the casual regard. The appearance of this one leaf, this surface I’m attempting to photograph, is tied to influences from afar. So much is obvious. Consequently, we are usually unaware of it. But I’m sure noticing these days. The shadows on the leaves tell a part of the story, if one cares to read. Perhaps the caring is what the beauty is for.