The title of this post has two meanings: first, it’s a return to abstraction because I published a post featuring abstract images earlier this year. Second, like many people these days, I find myself drifting back to the past. Aesthetically, the past for me means abstraction. As a child I was shown the standard representational fare, some of it very beautiful, no doubt. But change and rebellion were in the air by the time I went to college. I refused to attend a typical college and enrolled in a New York City art school instead. There, minimalism, conceptual art, installations, land art and performance art ruled. Fully immersed in that culture, I was very happy.
A thread had been dropped though, and it wouldn’t be picked up until much later. I never forgot that nature was vital to my being, even in a decade of full-throttle, staccato, subway-riding, sensory-overloaded life in the city. Nature just rode along quietly for a while, breathing gently like a hushed tide. When I moved out of the city the tide came in. I gardened, watched birds, learned botanical illustration, and eventually began wielding a camera to record the beauty I saw everywhere.
That brings me to the present, a present in which I joyfully hone my skills making photographs of lichens, landscapes, and everything in between. But abstraction lives. The habits of seeing that were refined in galleries, in classrooms and on the streets of New York may not be obvious in my work, but they underlie many decisions made behind the camera and at the computer.
In the spirit of creating something new while working with the past, I’ve been making drastic changes to photographs in my archives. I’ve been abstracting them and therein, I’m finding new delights. As Wikipedia notes, abstraction “strictly speaking…refers to art unconcerned with the literal depiction of things from the visible world—it can, however, refer to an object or image which has been distilled from the real world…” And that’s the space these images inhabit – the distillation and reshaping of the original image toward a new vision.
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I’ve been following a deviant route when I work with the photos on my screen. Before jumping into processing I get a feeling for the whole image. Then, instead of proceeding to refine what is there, I wonder what else is in the image. What can be extracted from it? What does it say? What permutations are waiting to be uncovered? Where can I take it?
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A paper appeared in my inbox one day that discusses a different, more philosophical approach to the photographic experience. Reading the paper, which was written by an art education professor, I stepped outside the world of photographers talking about photography for a moment. I realized that viewing photography through a different lens (sorry, I can’t help it!) could facilitate breaking habits. I thought about taking my typically representational images and mutating them.
“The encounter then operates as a rupture in our habitual modes of being and thus in our habitual subjectivities. It produces a cut, a crack. However this is not the end of the story, for the rupturing encounter also contains a moment of affirmation, the affirmation of a new world, in fact a way of seeing and thinking this world differently.”Thinking Through the Photographic Encounter: Engaging with the Camera as Nomadic Weapon by Cala Coats. Nomadic in this sense refers to boundary-blurring, creative, alternative ways of being in the world. As a nomadic weapon the camera assists the photographer in engaging with the world directly, resulting in new insights.
Is the camera only a representational tool? Certainly not. It can be a launch pad for a trip to an unknown place. If seeing the world with fresh eyes is desirable, then how can wielding a camera disrupt habitual ways of seeing? What can the person behind the lens do to break the spell of look-click-look-click-look-click? And later, what can the person tapping the keyboard do to break the spell of contrast-up-highlights-down-sharpness-up, etc.?
This post focuses on two places I return to frequently: one is at the island’s edge where land meets water, the other is inland, where a forest surrounds a lake. Water bodies have powerful effects on land, nourishing life with mist and fog, altering temperature, favoring particular plants and animals, and modifying the land itself. Bodies of water have profound effects on humans too, of course. Not least is the impact water has on our emotions. A lake I visit refreshes my mind even when barely glimpsed through the trees on a hill far above it. Reflections on the lake’s surface mesmerize me as I slowly ply the shoreline path. Along the island’s edge a larger body of water soothes my nerves, pushing waves that lap at my feet as I walk along the pebbled beach. Round stones roll and clatter when the water sucks them back, delighting my ears.
Walking by the water is restorative. I was in danger of taking that for granted until this month, when smoke-ridden, unhealthy air forced me to stop my outdoor walks. I didn’t think we would be shut indoors for so long, peering through closed windows at a landscape dulled by dirty air. I didn’t think the leaves on the Bigleaf maples could be so still for so long, or the birds so silent. That’s what happened though. And unsurprisingly, I got restless. For the past week I’ve made brief escapes by car, running the air conditioning (which I normally would not do) and gaping at horizons smudged down to nothingness. One normalizing errand I can do is to visit the drive-up espresso stand – but even that activity has been fraught. On the worst days, when the air quality index soared into a dangerous category, I would roll my window back up after ordering, roll it down again to grab the drink and up again while the masked barista smiled with her eyes and ran my card. Once she offered to add the tip and sign the receipt for me, so I wouldn’t need to roll the window down again. I worried about her, exposed to the “very unhealthy” air for hours on end.
But how lucky we both are, not to have lost our homes like so many others here on the increasingly hot and dry West Coast of America, the country that turns its back on climate change action and continues down a path which, if not altered, will create an unimaginable disaster. It will be a cowardly new world populated by the descendants of people who didn’t have the courage to act when it was necessary. I’m aware that I don’t help matters by using my car when I don’t absolutely need to. We all make compromises and do our best. We are living in strange times.
Today I’m going to spread a little beauty around. Maybe it will bring a measure of relief to you as you worry about what’s going on in the world, wherever you are. Water and its environs – drink it in with your tired eyes and breathe a long sigh. And maybe do one small thing today, to tip the scales the other way.
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1. A stipe (stem) of Bullwhip kelp (Nereocystis luetkeana) afloat in the shallow water of Rosario Bay. Deception Pass State Park, Washington.
2. Wind-sculpted Douglas fir trees and morning fog, August, Rosario Bay.
3. The Maiden of Deception Pass. She was carved from a Western redcedar as a joint Samish Tribe-Skagit County project. Here story can be found below, at the end of the post.
4. A Great blue heron (Ardea herodias) stalks its prey on Rockweed-covered rocks in Rosario Bay. I wish this bird good luck on this foggy morning.
5. Rocks are tumbled smooth by four tides a day at Rosario Beach.
6. A young Cooper’s hawk (Accipiter cooperii) perches on a tall Douglas fir and surveys the scene up on Rosario Head, a bald above the bay.
7. Hopefully this little Townsend’s chipmunk (Tamias townsendii) can evade the hawk’s talons. It ate calmly while I stood nearby but scrambled under the driftwood as soon as I moved.
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8. A dew-covered Fireweed seed (Chamaenerion angustifolium) caught on a blackberry bush, a Belted kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon) perched on a piling, Bullwhip kelp floating by the pier.
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9. Watching the fog at Rosario Beach.
10. Fog formed, evaporated and formed again as I meandered spellbound among the driftwood logs.
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11. At Little Cranberry Lake on a quiet July afternoon, a small island turns golden.
12. A tree that fell into the lake long ago sprouts a tuft of grass.
13. Beavers have been busy around the lake. The south end was flooded and now, dead trees wait their turn to crash into the water.
14. As I pick my way along the rocky, rooty shoreline, the water casts its spell.
15. Golden grasses sway on a bluff overlooking the lake.
16. Sword ferns (Polystichum munitum) throw lanky shadows across one another in the forest.
17. Long after they have dried up, papery Pearly everlasting flowers (Anaphalis margaritacea) continue to grace an opening in the woods above the lake.
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18. Rose hips on a Baldhip rose plant (Rosa gymnocarpa), Field mint (Mentha arvensis) growing right at the water’s edge, a man fishing with his young children holds a small Sunfish up for the camera before tossing it back.
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17. Douglas for branches dip their tips toward the water.
18. Tall, dense trees don’t let much light into the forest. Dew coats the dried flowers of Ocean Spray (also called Ironwood) (Holodiscus discolor) tracing a lacy filigree of light.
19. Thousands of midges, perhaps just hatched, swarm over the water at Little Cranberry Lake. Many will mate and many will be eaten.
20. Back at Rosario Bay, the view from Rosario Head is obscured by fog. Boat trails glow on the water’s surface long after they’re out of sight.
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The story of the Maiden of Deception Pass. Ko-Kwal-Alwoot was a beautiful Samish Indian girl living in a village at this site. She was gathering seafood one day when a young man from beneath the sea saw her and fell in love. But when this man of the sea asked her father for her hand in marriage, he refused, for fear she would drown. The young man warned Ko-Kwal-Alwoot’s father that the seafood would disappear unless she married him. When his warning proved to be true, Ko-Kwal-Alwoot’s father granted permission for the marriage. The beautiful woman waded into the sea to join her new husband. Once again the seafood returned and was plentiful. Ko-Kwal-Alwoot returned to her people once a year for four years. Barnacles had grown upon her hands and arms, and her long raven hair turned to kelp. Chill winds followed wherever she walked, and she seemed to be unhappy out of the sea. Seeing this, Ko-Kwal-Alwoot’s people told her she did not need to return to them. Since that day, she has been the Samish Tribe’s guiding spirit and through her protection there has always been plenty of seafood and pure, sweet springwater. From the Anacortes Museum and Maritime Heritage Center
The green island where I live is brimming with lush parks, but as much as I enjoy the beauty here, my restless spirit keeps spinning dreams of the mountains, where up is higher, down is lower and vistas are rugged and vast. Late summer is a perfect time to venture inland, to places like Mount Baker in the North Cascades or Hurricane Ridge, high in the Olympic mountains. Those two places have been teasing my brain for months and we could visit either one – they’re two or three hours away. But it’s prime time for visiting parks and crowds don’t appear in the pictures in my mind. When the summer frenzy abates there will still be time for those trips. In the meantime, last week I was looking for an alternative, an easy hike that doesn’t require too many hours on the road. I came across the Boulder River Trail and we decided to give it a go.
The trail leads through a forest surrounding the rushing waters of Boulder River, which tumbles down from a remote lake, high up on Three Fingers Mountain, where three jagged peaks rise 6,500 feet above sea level. Following an old railroad grade on the side of the canyon, the trail enters the Boulder River Wilderness, where 49,000 acres of forests and mountains are distinguished by wet conditions (twelve feet of rain annually), thick vegetation and steep terrain. The river plunges down three separate waterfalls on the way to its confluence with the larger Stillaguamish River. One of those waterfalls is the big draw for the hike.
The first waterfall is noisy Boulder Falls, which can be heard but can’t be seen without descending off-trail through thick woods. The next waterfall is the prettiest and at just over a mile from the trailhead, requires the least effort. Some sources say it has no name but others call it Feature Show Falls. Just don’t disagree about the directions and I’ll be fine!
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1. The road to the trailhead is overhung with mossy Bigleaf maple trees.
2. A peak at part of the waterfall
Feature Show Falls is a lovely, 180-foot-tall double cascade that runs all year, unlike some waterfalls that dwindle to a trickle in summer. The hike isn’t long but you pay a price for that: the trailhead is at the end of a pot-holed, gravel road. Happily the road is only four miles long. Many Pacific Northwest trailheads can only be reached after navigating cratered roads at a snail’s pace for at least an hour. The relatively easy access and non-strenuous hike appealed to us. Even better, a mile up the road there is a well-built vault toilet with lots of toilet paper and a door that locks. Just when you need it!
We were relieved to see only three cars at the trailhead when we arrived on a Thursday morning at about 10:30. We set out under a stunning canopy of moss-hung Bigleaf maple trees, with golden light angling down from high overhead. Our packs held plenty of water and snacks and our masks were stuffed in our pockets. I had a new, wide-angle prime lens on my camera that I was eager to use. Unfortunately, I had left a circular polarizer on it the day before and didn’t notice it until well into the hike. It’s frustrating, but who hasn’t done that? If I’d known the polarizer was on the lens I would have turned it for the best effect. In some cases I would not have wanted it – our forests can be very dim, even in summer. Some photos were beyond saving and others needed a lot of help in Lightroom but, c’est la vie!
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3. This forest was logged many years ago. Western hemlock, Douglas fir, Western redcedar and Bigleaf maple are all plentiful. Slopes are very steep but timber is valuable, so back in 1909, eight miles of railroad track were laid into the woods here. It’s hard to imagine how they did it. Further into the forest, the trees were spared because the going got too tough.
4. We admired this well-worn boardwalk across a wet section of trail. It’s made with thick planks of Western redcedar, once felled and split for cedar shakes and shingles but now left to grow tall and play its part in the great scheme that is life, here in this one particular slice of our earth.
5. Setting off.
The trail is mostly level as it traces the old railroad grade cut into the face of a steep slope. Nature proceeds unhindered here. Trees fall and rot in place, returning nourishment to the soil, with its wealth of fungal networks that in turn, nourish the plants above. Of course, some trees fall right across the trail and if they’re too big to remove, you have to climb over or under – whatever works. We were awed by the size of the fallen giants, especially two conifers that fell across the trail right next to each other. There was very little space underneath them but they seemed way too big to straddle. I handed my pack and camera to Joe and took the awkward way, crawling under the log. A pass of the packs and it was his turn. At times like these, I think, “Will this be the moment when the big earthquake we are overdue for finally happens?” The funny thing was, on the way back we noticed that someone had cut large notches in the tops of the two trees, making it practically a walk in the park to climb over them. We hadn’t studied the situation well enough on the way out, or maybe we’re just not experienced enough to know to look for those handy notches. Swinging up and over wasn’t so hard and it was much nicer than crawling across sharp rocks!
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6. The first of many trees to duck under or climb over, this one doesn’t need notches because there’s plenty of room to walk under it. The tree further down the trail can be walked around.
7. Another place I don’t want to be when the big earthquake hits. The notch is near the rock on the right; the second tree is hiding behind this one.
8. This piece of tree trunk plunged into the earth like a spear and then stayed there. I pushed and it hardly gave at all. It must have hit the ground with formidable force.
9. Sword fern shadows, a gentler side of the forest.
10. Like someone having a bad hair day, this frond on a Deer fern (Blechnum spicant) twists and turns every which way. Deer fern has two kinds of fronds – spore-bearing and sterile. The bright green sterile fronds usually grow low to the ground, like in the photo below. The spiky fertile fronds rise from the middle, standing straight up at first but contorting into wild shapes when they’re ready to release their spores. Yes, deer eat these ferns.
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11. Stairstep moss (Hylocomium splendens) in filtered light, a single berry on a Hooker’s fairybell plant (Disporum hookeri), and a young deer fern spread out on the ground like an octopus.
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12. A Pine white butterfly (Neophasia menapia) moved slowly enough for me to get a sharp image but in the end, I like this partly blurred one better. By this time I had switched to a macro lens.
13. This sculptural arrangement of roots and rock consists of at least one mature Western redcedar tree growing on an old, Western redcedar stump that grew on a large rock. To give you an idea of scale, the rock is big enough to sit on comfortably, with your feet barely touching the ground and your head two feet below the top of the stump.
14. Maidenhair fern (Adiantum pedatum) flourishes on moist rock walls. Unlike Sword fern and Deer fern, it’s not evergreen and the leaves were getting ragged. It’s not white, of course, but is fairly light in color, especially compared to evergreen ferns. I’m fond of the circular growth pattern.
15. Vine maple (Acer circinatum) prefers consistently moist environments so I rarely see it where I live. I was happy to see it growing here, even if some of the trees (technically they are large shrubs) were insect-ridden. Vine maple’s closest relatives are Japanese and Korean maples and like them, it is a graceful, delicate tree.
16. The forest is full of old trees; many of them have rotted. This mushroom, probably a Red-banded polypore (Fomitopsis pinicola) was one of the biggest I’ve ever seen. Black and white emphasizes the sinuous curves.
We heard the enticing roar of Boulder Falls, then rounded a bend and climbed an incline. Feature Show Falls was in range. After all, we were hungry so we must be near the end! We had taken far longer than the other six or eight hikers we saw. There was so much to admire – moss-covered trees disappearing into the canopy, filtered sunlight picking out leaf details, late-blooming wildflowers, six kinds of ferns, a dark, hollow tree with white, dew-dotted mushrooms inside it, huge stumps with loggers’ springboard slots cut into them…and finally, the waterfall appeared through the thick foliage. The trail had narrowed and footing was precarious in places. As we picked our way carefully across rocks and roots, we glanced across the deep ravine, getting bits and pieces of the falls. Eventually we arrived at a wide opening on the side of the ravine. A conveniently placed log offered a spot to sit while we ate lunch and listened to wild streams of water tumbling down 180 feet of rock to the Boulder River below. A rough trail leads steeply down to the river but we were content that day to just sit and listen.
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16. There were no vantage points to see the whole falls, top to bottom and right to left, without descending to the riverbed. I worked with what I had. This view is through the moss and lichen-covered branches of a Bigleaf maple tree.
17. The air was cool and fresh and filled with tiny insects flying back and forth in the charged air next to the falls. Leaves fluttered from breezes let loose by the force of the water. Fine threads glinted and wavered, catching the light – they were spiderwebs, strung high over the river from tree limbs. Only the rocks were still.
18. A view through graceful Western hemlock branches.
Are you ever curious about an empty lot that you’ve passed countless times? Maybe an abandoned building or a field exudes an aura that captures your attention. Not far from my home there’s a tract of land next to a highway that I used to wonder about. Last June my curiosity intensified when masses of wildflowers appeared there. Tall, magenta flowers ascended a rocky cliff next to the highway. More flowers marched across the ridge top but beyond that was anyone’s guess – I could see no further. I really wanted to know what was up there! Each time I drove by I strained to see where the overgrown gravel road leading into the property went. A chain was strung across the bottom of the road and a “For Sale” sign sat next to it for months. Then the sign was removed, adding another question: did someone buy the property? As the height of summer approached and the profusion of foxgloves and daisies grew more colorful, my brain tingled with visions of what might be up there. I fantasized about gathering a bouquet of wildflowers and carting them home to enjoy all day long.
So I convinced my partner in crime to explore – well, to trespass – with me one fine, June day. We pulled into the gravel drive and parked off to the side. I thought at best we might look like potential buyers, at worst we were trespassing. I figured I could probably finesse the situation if anyone came along and questioned us.*
But no one did. What a sight it was up there! The land appeared to be a large parcel that someone began clearing years ago, perhaps to build a house or a development. Maybe the money ran out and the project was abandoned. The land is nothing more than three little contour lines on a topographic map – but as we climbed the hill, a network of undulating fields, rock outcroppings and woodlands unfolded before us. Small groves of blackened, dead trees and burned rocks told us a fire once ripped across the ridge. Summers here are very dry and fires can flare up quickly, but this one appeared to have been put out before it did much damage. Scrambling up a rock outcrop, I saw a slice of blue water surrounded by firs in the distance, a view that must have sealed the deal for the buyer.
Here are photographs from that delightful June afternoon. Benign neglect has allowed a whole community of plants, insects, animals, and birds to thrive in this patch of land beside a busy highway. The living beings here appear to be doing fine without any human interference. Each expresses its individual nature even as the whole blends into a hidden, human-free Arcadia. To my mind, the sky and clouds together with the land and its inhabitants are breathing a symphony into existence. After spending a few hours up there, I could only respect the fabric of the landscape for what it was. I hoped the human hand would continue to play a very minor role in the landscape. Imagine how nice that would be.
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1. A river of daisies.
2. A stand of Douglas fir trees shows what fire can do. The low branches of young trees would have quickly caught fire, causing the entire tree to become engulfed. Mature Douglas firs tend not to have branches at the bottom, making it harder for flames to travel up the tree. They also have very thick bark that protects them from fires. Many of the oldest Douglas firs on Fidalgo Island sport charcoal-black scars from fires past, but they are still going strong.
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6. Foxgloves were scattered everywhere.
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10. A profusion of Foxgloves and daisies among charred trees and branches.
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12. A tiny Rufous hummingbird resting high in a tree watched us carefully. (I didn’t have a zoom lens with me so I did the best I could).
13. This field has scant shade, a result of logging and fire that created optimal conditions for sun-loving grasses and flowers like Foxgloves and daisies. Soil disturbance from logging probably prevented native plants from gaining a better foothold, though the field does contain some natives. Many non-native plants favor disturbed soil, which is why you often see them on roadsides and vacant lots. But what an effective combination this is, aesthetically – Foxgloves for height and color, daisies for mass, and grasses to tie it all together. These attractive flowers arrived without conscious human help and established themselves artfully. A garden designer might be envious.
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15. I didn’t see the tiny insects on these flowers until after I got home and imported the photo.
16. Campbell Lake is in the distance. I believe the rust-colored moss was burnt in the fire.
17. Fresh green moss grows in patches where the ground is still black from the fire. The lands heals slowly.
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19. It looks like the older Douglas firs here will make it. If the land is left to its own devices, new Douglas firs and a procession of plants and animals will appear over the years. But chances are, sometime in the next decade or so this land will be turned into houses and roads.
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* I don’t advocate trespassing. In this case, I had enough familiarity with the land and the larger environment to feel that it I could probably walk on the property without harming anyone or anything. Strictly speaking, I should not have wandered up there.
Something about the middle of August always inclines me to take a small step back and ponder the passing of summer with a sigh. The onward unfolding of seasonal changes never hesitates, always moving forward. The transitions are incremental; some obvious, some almost invisible. Here in the Northern hemisphere, by the middle of August the green machine is winding down. Leaves drop onto the ground. Dry grasses sparkle in the sunlight and berries ripen. Gardens are lush with tall, joyful blooms that have grown up together into fine, tangled bouquets. Young birds fending for themselves still beg from their parents now and then, fluttering their wings and peeping. Who can blame them? Fawns follow does to the best munching spots, which are too often on the wrong side of the road when I’m driving. Along the waterways shorebird migration is ramping up but lakes are placid and calm, perfect for canoes and paddleboards. Mid-August is also the time when hurricanes form and wildfires flare up with a vengeance, just as people disperse for a final summer sojourn.
You may be thinking about sights, sounds and smells that signify late summer in your neighborhood, or the news of California wildfire evacuations and floods in China. Looking out the window, I notice the light is a shade gentler and Bigleaf maple leaves have traded the fresh brilliance of spring for softer, warmer hues. We’re losing light as the days shorten. Summer’s riotous colors are just beginning to fade, another sign of the transition toward fall. The signs are subtle now. Next month will be another story.
So, in honor of fading light and quieter colors, here is a series of photographs from the past month. The images speak in tints and tinges instead of strong colors. I’ll throw in a few outliers to keep you from drifting off.
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1. Pearly everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea).
2. Driftwood shelters get more elaborate every year. This one was encountered one cloudy afternoon on Whidbey Island.
3. Grasses, Queen Anne’s Lace and Curly dock (Rumex crispus) brighten a roadside field.
4. This thin-soiled area near the shoreline always dries out early and the Madrone leaves are already thick on the ground. On the trail they’re crushed to bits but here they make a lovely tumble.
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My first posthere was published in the middle of August, in 2012. I uploaded two photos and wrote, “Earth holds its breath for a few days – everything is still, heavy with light and summer dreams, waiting to move forward into autumn.” Noticing the nuances of seasonal change has always kept me grounded and recognizing summer’s impending dispersion into fall seemed like an appropriate way to begin this ecocentric blog.
You could make a case for eight seasons if you include the transitions from spring to summer, summer to fall, fall to winter and winter to spring. Each shift from one season to the next has its own sensory perceptions: the slightly earlier dawns and swelling buds in February, the decomposing leaves and chill in the air in November – the more you think about it, the more signs you’ll find. Some transitions may be more remarkable than others – for example, as we anticipate spring we search for every little sign that it’s on the way. For me, summer-into-fall stands out as a time when, as I said above, I step back and observe what’s happening in nature with a sigh. Why is that?
The social worker in me suspects that it’s because of a series of events that took place at this time of year. An unexpected, violent attack on a mid-August day, the year I graduated from high school, left a legacy of mute terror that effectively froze the feelings of a moment in time to the sensations of the season when it occurred. After that, every time the middle of August rolled around I would remember that difficult time, first as a vague discomfort, then more consciously. Then fifteen years later on another mid-August afternoon a drowning accident in which I tried, but could not save a friend’s life darkened the season again. I couldn’t bear to see autumn approaching that year – every falling leaf meant I was farther from the time when my friend was alive. I just wanted time to stand still. Four years after that my father died suddenly, in mid-August. The month filled me with foreboding – what next?
But time undercuts the fear, softens the jagged edges and lends perspective. I may still be acutely sensitive to the hallmarks of late summer – the slight damping-down of light, the first scatter of leaves on the grass, the torpor of stillness on hot afternoons, the absence of birdsong. But it doesn’t put me on edge as much. In fact, the tiptoe beginnings of autumn’s inward turn can feel like a respite after the wild ebullience of spring and early summer. After all, better light for photography is on the way! Vague feelings of unease may surface from time to time but on balance, I know it’s not good or bad, this time of year. It is what it is, as the saying goes. Well, maybe it’s good. Yes, if anything, it’s good.
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5. The Sauk River: slow and shallow in late summer.
6. Madrone trees (Arbutus menziesii) shed their bark.
7. Bracken fern (Pteridium aquilinum), the word’s most widespread fern (according to my ‘Plants of Coastal British Columbia’ book) is changing color.
8. Layers of Madrone leaves: this year’s on top of last year’s.
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10. A Great blue heron (Ardea herodias) fishes from a Bullwhip kelp bed (Nereocystis luetkeana).
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11. A pair of Barn swallow fledglings (Hirundo rustica) being fed on the pier at Bowman Bay.
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12. Two families of River otters (Lontra canadensis) returned from fishing in Bowman Bay on this foggy August morning. A Bald eagle harassed the group at the top but was unsuccessful. I cheered as the littlest one, barely keeping up with the others, made it safely to the wetland.
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13. Driftwood.
14. Eelgrass catches on the trees on the shoreline during extra-high tides and then remains there slowly being bleached by the sun.
15. Lichens on driftwood, a Madrone leaf with dew, shadows in the gravel bya river and a weathered Madrone branch on a bed of grass and Reindeer lichen (Cladonia sp.).
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17. This tiny crab was not happy with me.
18. The calm waters of Little Cranberry Lake.
19. A Common (or Fringed) willowherb (Epilobium ciliatum) going to seed.
20. The beginnings of fall color on a Bigleaf maple (Acer macrophyllum) leaf.
“Abstract” is a familiar word that is worth prying open and thinking about. It’s from the Latin abstractus, which means drawn away. Abstrahere (the verb) is defined as “to drag away, detach, pull away, divert.” The abstracted idea or object is dragged away from its physicality, diverted from its origin. In art, the word abstract has come to describe work that does not intentionally reproduce reality. Likewise, in photography, an abstract image does not depend on a real-world referent but relies on shape, light, form, and/or color to convey visual information and impressions.
Over a hundred years ago a man named Alvin Langdon Coburn had an idea for a photography show in which “no work will be admitted in which the interest of the subject matter is greater than the appreciation of the extraordinary.” (Rexer, Lyle. The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography. NY: Aperture, 2013.) That thought exposes the aesthetic crux that many photographers who work with “reality” (whether that means portraits or landscapes or street photography) are dealing with: is the photograph just a snapshot, or does it say something more?
I think for most people reading this post, reproducing reality is (still) a compelling exercise but “the appreciation of the extraordinary” is probably what keeps that finger clicking the shutter. It’s certainly true for me.
To convey the “extra” that I find in the ordinary, I like to explore different approaches; abstraction is one that can freshen the mind’s eye. The images here come at abstraction from a variety of angles and some are more recognizable as real-world objects than others. But in my opinion, there’s no need to name what you see.
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The urge to name what we see is hard to resist though. As soon as we see something, especially a two-dimensional image, labels pop into our minds. When we studied Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in school, we learned to ask, “What’s in a name?” It was a good lesson, but it barely loosened the knot of naming things. We are compelled to tie an identity around everything and everyone, and usually, we tie the knot pretty tightly. That identity, that name, inevitably drags waves of associations along with it – liking, disliking, evaluating, remembering, etc.
Of course, the propensity for identifying what we see is necessary and helpful, but it’s not a bad idea to question it once in a while. Names and identities may be more arbitrary than we realize. Questioning the connection of a name to its referent can open up space in our minds. Even just loosening the bonds of language to simply absorb images without labeling them can be rewarding.
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I’m not advocating slipping down into a world where meaning is entirely arbitrary and unique to each person. We need to agree on something, even if it’s only the names of things – times are tough enough! But I think it’s beneficial to step out of the familiarity of our language-based environment now and then. A little muddling and messing about with what we’ve come to rely on as firm and clear can be refreshing.
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12. If you identify this as “leaf,” “veins”, and maybe “fuzzy,” do those words change the experience of viewing the image? If I call it “dashu and crannen” do you look harder? (Or maybe you move along quickly!)
Lacking a brain, the black box doesn’t know that the flower in front of it isn’t just a flower, but is an infinite web of relationships. The awareness that a subject isn’t separate from its surroundings is something we are able to perceive, along with the awareness that we can choose to focus on any part of the whole, using our camera. Constantly becoming, the flower may be positioned at the center of the field that the camera encompasses, but in fact, the center extends infinitely through space and time, inviting a myriad of abstractions.
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These images have been altered by severe cropping, color changes, and tonal manipulations. I followed my nose towards different “meanings” of the scenes above than what the camera saw, subverting the black box’s stubborn insistence on one-to-one reproduction. No matter where I point it, the camera “wants” to make a faithful copy. This is the blessing/curse of photography. Of course, the camera does have a person operating it – a person with ideas, history, and intentions. A moment to record was chosen. And later, when we sit down with the camera’s rendition of reality before us, we’re free to play with it as much or as little as we want.
By the way, I’m happy to divulge the names of these things and whatever I can remember about the process of metamorphosing them into abstractions. Just ask.
This entry in my “Just One” series about Pacific Northwest plants is actually about two wildflowers that look alike at first glance. It has taken me a long time to identify and differentiate them. They’re both Rein orchids – small, delicate wildflowers that most people have never heard of and would not notice, even if they walked right past them. But bear with me – they’re really quite beautiful.
1. A group of Elegant Rein orchids at Kukutali Preserve; July, 2019.
I’ve become a bit obsessed with Rein orchids ever since discovering one in a hidden spot off a preserve trail two weeks after we moved to Fidalgo Island. I could tell it was an orchid but I’d never seen anything quite like it. A year later I found the little orchid again, this time in five different places. As I studied my photos I could see that some were different from the others, but when I tried to identify them I was met with a jumble of look-alike species and a veritable morass of names.
Learning that their leaves emerge in late winter, I reminded myself to search for the leaves where I’d seen the orchids in the summer. Sure enough, in February I found healthy, oval leaves, pressed close to the ground, gathering energy so the plant could flower in the summer. They had to be the Rein orchid plants.
This year I resolved to better understand the science of what I was seeing. I wanted to at least know the proper names of these pretty flowers, though I believe that names and science aren’t the only tools for understanding our experience of the natural world. There are less logic-based ways to understand the world which are just as important, but I value science – and I was itching to figure out which is which! A website called inaturalist has been very helpful; I can compare what other people have photographed and identified with my own sightings. I feel fairly confident now that I’ve been seeing two species of Rein orchids here on Fidalgo Island: Platanthera elegans and Platanthera transversa. There’s something tantalizingly poetic about these slender sprites that hide in plain sight.
2. A Rein orchid in the woods on a summer afternoon.
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The Rein orchids wait patiently,
gilded grasses swaying around them, faint
bay breezes rustling the dry Madrone leaves
at their feet. Spiders craft
sticky thread-worlds on their petals,
motorboats rumble in the distance,
occasional bursts of human voices
fade as quickly as they appear. The orchids
wait for the night
and the pollinators, for the arrival
of soft wings and probing tongues,
the woosh, the slurp, the brush of feet and antennae.
This is the reward of patience, or so I imagine
because our encounters, however sweet, are
never by moonlight. We soak the midsummer sun
together, the Rein orchids and I. The heat pricks my nose
with the fragrance of dry grass and cedar, and
encourages petals and roots to stretch. It relaxes
my stiff neck. Slowly the orchids’ nectar ripens
to satisfy the single species of moth that
might pollinate a tiny flower. Let it happen.
Let it happen and
let me find another fairy tale cluster
of slim white stems nestled in the warm grass
next year.
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3. Platanthera elegans at Kukutali Preserve.
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5. A Rein orchid under a Madrone tree.
Orchids are fascinating. The pretty corsages you see at weddings evolved their colors and curves for very specific reasons, having nothing to do with humans. Evolutionarily advanced, orchids have developed thousands of distinctive ways to attract their pollinators. As Darwin said, “The contrivances for insect fertilization in Orchids are multiform & truly wonderful & beautiful.” As orchid species evolve, their pollinators evolve too, resulting in very specific, even exclusive relationships between plant and pollinator. Orchids often trick their pollinators, which can be bees, hummingbirds, moths, even birds. It’s theorized that the tricks employed by orchids to attract pollinators result in a greater fertilization success rate – as the specialist keeps visiting its favorite orchid species, the orchid pollen it collects isn’t wasted on other flower species.
The first orchid appeared on earth’s evolutionary stage some 100 million years ago; the family now comprises as many as 28,000 different species. Many grow high in trees, some thrive high in the mountains, a few live above the Arctic Circle, most grow in the tropics, and one exists entirely underground.
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6. The Flat-spurred Rein orchid, Platanthera transversa. (This photo was somewhat desaturated in processing.)
7. Another Flat-spurred Rein orchid and a single fine spider thread. Photo slightly desaturated.
8. A Flat-spurred Rein orchid with the background darkened in processing. Is this the way the orchids look on a moonlit night? Their moth pollinators might know.
9. Two lovely Flat-spurred Rein orchids growing up through Douglas fir and Bearberry at Goose Rock, Deception Pass State Park. Follow this link to see a preserved Rein orchid collected on July 15, 1936 for the University of Washington’s Burke Herbarium, also from Goose Rock. This land was preserved as a state park. The species continues.
The Platanthera genus contains around 100 species; 45 are native to North America. At least two – P. elegans and P. transversa – grow close to my home. They are the orchids pictured here. Neither one has a fixed common name but P. elegans is sometimes called the Elegant Rein orchid. Apparently, our P. elegans is a subspecies, P. elegans elegans, the Coast Piperia. (Piperia is after Charles V. Piper, an American botanist and an authority on Pacific Northwest plants). P. transversa (pictured just above) is called the Flat-spurred Rein orchid, or sometimes the Royal Rein orchid. Flat-spurred refers to the long flower spur where the nectar is. It extends out horizontally on each little flower, clearly visible in photos #6 and 18. Another similar species (P. unalascensis) probably grows here as well but I haven’t seen it yet. These flowers are challenging!
Rein orchidson Fidalgo Island favor relatively dry, partly shady conditions. They grow near Douglas fir, and frequently under Madrone trees, which also like drier places. Clusters of Rein orchids can be seen hugging steep slopes facing the water and single flowers may be scattered near trails in open woods, where they get a little more sun than they would in a dense forest. I’ve noticed the presence of another small orchid, the Rattlesnake plantain (Goodyera oblongifolia), can be a clue that Rein orchids may be nearby. It surprises me that no one picks them or tramples them. Maybe that’s the cynical New Yorker in me, expecting nature to be destroyed by hordes of heedless humans. More likely, people don’t see them in the first place. Flower stalks are just a foot or two (20 – 55cm) tall and the flowers don’t sport bright colors. If I show a Rein orchid to someone the reaction is puzzlement and slight disappointment – that’s an orchid? You have to bend down and really look hard to see the graceful flowers. I think their small stature and pale colors are keeping them safe.
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10. A Coast Piperia orchid emerges from a sheltered spot littered with fallen Madrone leaves.
11. As if to prove its affinity for Madrone trees, this orchid wears a Madrone leaf. A notch in the leaf caught it on the stalk. I should go back and see if it’s still there.
12. A Coast Piperia orchid among wild grasses and yellow Hairy Cat’s ear flowers (Hypochaeris radicata) at Kukutali Preserve.
13. Rein orchids at Sharpe Park, photographed out-of-focus with a vintage Takumar lens.
14. This photo was also made with the vintage lens, and processed using the Silver Efex antique plate effect.
15. A Rein orchid in the woods at Washington Park photographed with the vintage lens.
A deeper dive into the strange world of orchid reproduction
Rein orchids are summer bloomers whose leaves emerge in late winter. The orchids are busy photosynthesizing well before many other plants are visible. By July the stalk appears, buds begin to open, and the leaves are dry up. After pollination, the stalk is dotted with brown seed pods containing prodigious amounts of seed. Unlike most seeds, tiny orchid seeds don’t have enough nutrition on board to get going on their own. They must join with a mycorrhizal network (a web of fungal threads in the soil) to survive. Within hours of this crucial linkage, carbon will flow in both directions, benefiting the “infected” orchid and the fungus. Fungal partners also supply nitrogen and phosphorus to the orchid. This mycorrhizal association, though not well understood, is absolutely essential to all orchids.
Once a seed germinates and begins growing underground, the slow process of flowering is underway. A root will form in the soil at some point, but it can be years before a leaf emerges and photosynthesis takes place. It can also be years before the plant is robust enough to produce a flower stalk. Once the plant blooms and releases its seeds, little is left to see above ground. But a tuber is there, hiding in the soil, along with many fungal networks. When the time is right, (patience!) another Rein orchid will appear.
There is a dearth of information about these orchids. It’s not clear exactly what insects pollinate them. One source says that P. elegans is pollinated by a small brown moth not much bigger than your thumb. Its Latin name is Plusia nichollae and there is no common name – more obscurity! The little pollinator is a partly diurnal moth that lives mainly west of the Cascades, from coastal British Columbia to the Bay area in California, a narrow range not unlike that of the orchid. Sienna brown wings marked with white and gold would make the moth hard to spot among the golden grasses that often surround P. elegans. I’ll be looking for it.
A source says Flat-spurred rein orchids may be pollinated by “moths such as Thallophaga taylorata.” This moth doesn’t have a common name either. The obscurity of these lovely little plants is part of the appeal. They aren’t common, they grow in out-of-the-way places, they’re not well-studied by scientists, they aren’t known at all by the general public…and there you have a recipe for wonder. They will keep my attention for a while, I expect.
As I write this post, the flowers are fading and the plants are moving on to seed setting and dispersal. Six months from now I’ll be looking for Rein orchid leaves, nestled in moist moss. Until next year…
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Rein orchid leaves in February
Rein orchid leaves in February
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17. By April, more plants are emerging. Flowering for the Rein orchids is still three months away.
18. A Coast Piperia blooms among wildflowers, moss, and last year’s sloughed off Madrone bark and leaves.
19. Wildflower seeds blew onto this Flat-spurred Rein orchid near Mt. Erie.
20. The flowers fade in late July as the ovaries swell and harden into seed pods.
21. An elegant Coast Piperia specimen in full flower.
22. A wildflower bonanza right next to a trail high up on Sugarloaf, part of the Anacortes Community Forest Lands. Nodding onions (Allium cernuum) surround this Coast Piperia Rein orchid.
This project has its roots in another project I worked on in 1972-73. I took a square pane of glass to a vacant field an hour west of New York City and placed it on the ground. It was a sunny day and soon condensation began to form on the plants under the glass. Everything under the glass took on a slightly blue cast. I photographed that and moved on to other manipulations, wrapping a plastic bag over a small bush and bending a square of aluminum foil around a barbed wire fence so the foil hung like flag. I was interested in reflections and other subtle changes in the light that I could make with gentle interventions in the environment.
The following winter I returned to the field after a heavy snowfall with the pane of glass under my arm. Dropping it onto the snow, I photographed the resulting square made by shadows cast along the edges of the glass. I stuck the pane into the snow on its edge and photographed it head-on, with its bright reflection on one side and its shadow on the other side. I kept going, playing with a ball of string and four utility candles – more white on white. The pieces (photographs of them) were submitted for a sculpture class at the School of Visual Arts, which I was attending.
Then the ideas went dormant for a long time. One of the pieces was titled “Disappearance” but the ideas never disappeared from my mind. The play of light on objects always drew my attention, whether I was working, walking across the city, taking care of my son or gazing out a window. Four slides of the work from the early 1970s survive. Those images and my memory were enough to nudge me toward the hardware store this month to purchase two squares of glass, cut to my specifications. I drove to a field again, this time in Washington State. It was another sunny day, but of course, conditions were different than they were in 1972. I’m different. So I worked with the glass square, took photos, thought about what I saw on the screen and went out a second time. The photos above are from these two recent forays. I expect there will be more.
Two years ago this week we traveled 70 miles north, leaving a booming Seattle suburb for a quiet, 41-square-mile island of about 20,000 people. We have witnessed all four seasons here twice now. We have zeroed in on an assortment of favorite places – bluffs and beaches for sunset views, shorelines to meander along, coffee shops to linger in, forests to immerse ourselves in. Our lives feel very different than they did before we moved. It’s a good time to celebrate the pleasures of this place.
1. Mt. Erie, the island’s highest point, wrapped in fog. June, 2020.2. Mt. Erie from the south, with Pass Lake. December, 2019.
3. A trail through old Douglas firs. January, 2019.
4. Bark studies. March 2019, August 2018.
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5. Lichen-encrusted branch, Bowman Bay. March 2019.
8. Around Anacortes: Old wooden ship used as breakwater, Shed in an alley, Flower in the sidewalk, Bookstore shelves and ladders, Coffee and COVID mask, Island Enterprise in for repairs. July, 2018, December, 2018, July 2020. July, 2020, July, 2020, December 2018.
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9. Mt. Baker from Cap Sante. October, 2018.
10. Rain over Deception Island; Fidalgo Island is to the right. December, 2019.
11. Hardhack (Spirea douglasii), Nootka rose (Rosa nutkana) and Dark-throat Shooting star (Dodecatheon pulchellum). Little Cranberry Lake, July, 2019, Bowman Bay, May 2019, at home, May 2019.
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12. Driftwood, grasses and wild roses; Rosario Beach. February 2020.
13. Floating burr-reed (Sparganium angustifolium) (?) and reflections, Little Cranberry Lake. September, 2018.
14. Bullwhip kelp (Nereocystis Leutkeana). Bowman Bay and Rosario Beach. September 2018, January 2019, November 2018.
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15. Evening reflections, Little Cranberry Lake. October 2019.
16. Rain shower, Little Cranberry Lake. February, 2019.
17. Barred owl (Strix varia) at home, River otter (Lontra canadensis) family at Rosario Beach, Douglas squirrel (Tamiasciurus douglasii) at Rosario Beach, Columbian black-tailed deer buck (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus) at Bowman Bay. September 2019, September 2019, July 2018, June 2020.
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18. The creek at home. February, 2019.
19. Heart Lake trail. August, 2018.
20. Chestnut-backed Chickadee (Poecile rufescens) at home, Satyr comma butterfly (Polygonia satyrus) at Sharpe Park, Harlequin ducks (Histrionicus histrionicus) at Washington Park, Great blue heron (Ardea herodias) at Rosario Beach. January 2020, May 2019, December 2018, December 2018.
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21. A fishing boat tied up at Trident Seafoods in Anacortes. November, 2018.
22. Fog on Mt. Erie. December, 2019.
23. Western tiger lilies (Lilum columbianum), Washington Park. Clasping twisted stalk, (Streptopus amplexifolius), Sugarloaf. Flat spurred Piperia (Platanthera transversa), Sharpe Park. Western Bracken fern (Pteridium aquilinum), Sharpe Park. June 2020, April 2020, July 2020, May 2019.
24. Heart Lake. February, 2020.
25. Looking west from Lighthouse Point. December 2018.
26. Bell, shadows and reflections at home. February, 2019.
If I’m going to include lichens in my “Just One” series about plants that open my eyes wider (and yes, lichens must be included!) then let the first lichen be this one.
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1.
Lovely Lace lichen
who are you?
Your Latin name, Ramalina menziesii, dances
across my lips
and hovers lightly in the air,
waiting to be explained. Your
drifting, wafting, pendulous gray-green veils
take me back to the Georgia coast, where
Spanish moss hangs languorously from massive oaks
lending mystery to the humid air. But you’re different.
Instead of wavy, branching strands like Spanish moss (which isn’t a lichen anyway, but a very odd flowering plant)
instead of long bristled cords like the Methuselah’s beard lichen
your body is a strange landscape of wonder containing
endless revelations: here
a fine fishnet of connected filaments, there
a wavy-edged ribbon with knobby antennae, there
a weightless, crooked ladder, there
a neuron dancing in the air.
As the scientist says, there’s
considerable morphological variation.
And amidst this melange of forms
always
the swing and sway, the
drape and droop of you:
an enchantment in the woods.
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2. Lace lichen on Douglas fir, within sight of the Salish Sea.
3. Wavy ribbons.
4. A crooked mesh ladder.5. Hanging from a pine tree at California’s Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge.
The Structure
Different theories have been proposed to explain the odd, net-like structure of Ramalina menziesii. One idea is that the perforations make the lichen less apt to break when stretched. I’ve pulled on them – they’re surprisingly elastic. The holey structure (you could say holy, too, as far as I’m concerned) is supposed to facilitate grabbing water out of the atmosphere and shedding excess heat. I’m not sure what the final word is on why Lace lichen is built the way it is. Let’s just look:
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Experiencing Lace lichen
Lace lichen kindly requests that I leave my concepts at the door. It’s place in this world is more intricately interdependent than I can imagine. But if I can get my “knowing” brain out of the way perhaps I will see a little more of this lichen’s true nature. It’s not fixed and it can’t be grasped by human words (but it’s still worth it to try). Being with this lichen, I perceive a ghostly grace. I hear water splash in the distance, feel cool air on my face. I sense movement, a persistent swaying back and forth across space and time. There is attachment too, in the twirling strands suspended from branches and twigs. If I tug lightly, I sense the rightness of the attachment; the lichen knows its place and resists removal. When the rains come the strands are soft, almost weightless and when they dry up they feel rough, brittle even.
Those are some of my experiences; your sense of a lichen, a plant or an animal in your own world is different. It is local to you; it’s a moment that comes and goes but with open attention, can be deeply inspiring. And relaxing.
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12. I wondered what the Chestnut-backed chickadees were doing, rummaging around in this big clump of Lace lichen. My question went unanswered…but I was left with delight.13. 14. The way Lace lichen joins branches and twigs to one another expands my perception of the space they inhabit.
The Science
Where does Lace lichen hang its ragged gray-green hat? On Fidalgo Island it thrives in the mists that rise on cool mornings in a few places along the western shoreline. Unlike many lichens that can be found all across the globe given the right conditions, this one keeps to a relatively tight geography, settling in on America’s West coast from 25° N to 55° N latitude (southern California to southern Alaska). In California it can range 130 miles inland but it flourishes between the mountains and the sea, where the air is clean and the light is diffuse and cool. Moist winds from the West carry nutrients captured by Lace lichen’s netted contours. That open structure also collects pollution, which will kill the lichen. You won’t find it amidst the honking horns of a metropolis.
What goes on inside lichens is surprising – for one thing, they’re not plants, they are complex partnerships between a fungus, and in the case of Lace lichen, the green alga Trebouxia decolorans (when it grows on California oaks – maybe Lace lichen in other locations has different algal partners). You can think of lichens as small-scale farms or ecosystems, with the fungus providing support and the alga making food for itself and the fungus by photosynthesizing. The scientific name for Lace lichen is actually only the name of the fungal partner. In the case of many lichens, I doubt that the photosynthesizing partner has even been identified. Lichen partnerships can include cyanobacterium, non-photosynthetic bacteria, and some have single-celled yeast partners, too. Whew, it’s a party in there!
Lichens have been called “intimately interacting mutualists.” That sounds like something we should all engage in more often. The partners’ activity produces chemical compounds like proteins, amino acids, and polysaccahrides as well as secondary metabolites like antioxidants and substances that act as a sunblock. Though humans don’t get much from eating Lace lichen, elk and deer are known to browse it. Birds most likely use it for nesting material. Lace lichen was used “in a variety of ways by tribes of Native Americans along the coast, and possibly throughout the Sierra. In a compilation put together by Sylvia Sharnoff in 2003, Lace Lichen was used by the Kawaiisu because of its “magical” properties. They would use it to ward off thunder and lightning by throwing it in fire. They would also throw it in water to bring on rain.” (Journal of the Sierra College Natural History Museum, Winter 2018).
If you’re wondering about reproduction, Lace lichen (really the fungal partner) reproduces both sexually and asexually. The asexual method is simply fragmentation – pieces get torn off and if they land in the right place, they’ll keep growing. There are tiny cup-like protrusions (apothecium) on the lichen’s body that hold spores which can be blown out by the wind. How exactly the spore turns into the lichen, I do not know! The fungus would need to find that photosynthesizing partner to grow into a Lace lichen (and you thought humans had trouble finding the right partner). Life is complex!
15. A clump of Lace lichen on the ground.
16. I put a wayward strand on my car to admire the color and structure.
17. This tree wears a Lace lichen necklace. You can see other lichen species on the bark of the tree. This Lace lichen is drying out as summer approaches. It will bounce back from dormancy with the return of rainfall in September.
18. A lichen and its shadow.
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Humans Connect with Ramalina menziesii
The Macedonian artist Kristina Zimbakova has used Lace lichens (and other species of lichen) in her mixed media work. Here is an example.
In 2015 California became the first state in the US to recognize a state lichen, Ramalina menziesii. After years of lobbying by the California Lichen Society, Governor Jerry Brown signed on the dotted line.
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“We must entrust ourselves to what we are investigating to guide us safely in the quest” (Gadamer, 1960/1989, p. 378)
