The images in this post were made during a mid-day walk in the 270 acre Lone Pine State Park near my home in Kalispell, Montana. I walk in this park a lot. Its proximity to my house makes it a quick and easy place with 7 miles of forested trails to stroll through.
A not insignificant portion of the work that I have made over my years of making photographs have been made in small natural spaces like this one. Small state parks, nature preserves, conservation areas, wildlife protection areas, manifold little enclaves of natural splendor miraculously partitioned off to keep the ravenous destructive powers of the modern world at bay, if only for a little while.
I’ve always had a predilection for returning to the same places, over and over. Forming a genuine relationship and connection to the places I’m photographing rather than one-off visits to far off exotic areas. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy hiking off in to the wilderness as much as the next person but the fanfare associated with getting to lost in the wilderness is often significant. And these small spaces are often closer and easier to revisit again and again than the multi-day backpacking trip miles and miles in to the backcountry.
In the past I have connected this focus on small spaces to the attempt to rebuild our broken connection to the world, to the spiritual importance of our rootedness in the webs of being that surround us, and to the conviction that the best place to begin building that is where we stand, in the places of beauty and salvation close at hand no matter how small. For example this was discussed in an old interview with Andrew McClees here.
I still believe all of this, in the salvific power of nature. But even more so lately I have become convinced of the importance of the redemptive beauty that can be found shining in these small quiet spaces of our day to day lives. The overgrown fence lines, the anarchic defiance of riparian habitats blossoming around neglected stream banks, and the sublime beauty of the landscape left to shine its quiet radiance. All these small little glimmers of beauty have taken on a deepened sense of interest to me in that light.
Images shot on the Leica M4-2 with the TTArtisan 28/5.6 in Kentmere 100 rated at 200.