Birthplace of the Texas Flag

Montgomery, Texas. The b&b is a delightful and quaint little shack in a tiny neighborhood nestled in the forest. The elderly host is one of the fastest texters I know and communicates in emojis, but this knack for technology hasn’t stopped her from leaving a delightful binder on the desk of printed MapQuest directions to local attractions. I go to museums to see old things, but sometimes I have to remind myself to just look around too. And all the furniture is miniature, sized to her sub-5ft stature and leaves me feeling like Gandolf in a hobbit house. Illustrating on the small desk, I realize that the Faber Castel .5mm pens last twice as long down here. They’d live short lives in the thin air of the Rockies, but here they breathe in the humid coastal air and live forever. And in that lovely late autumn air is a constant wood fire scent wafting forth from wood stoves and bonfires, endearing one to this place along with the glow of orange house lights under the dense tree canopy that bestows it with Halloween vibes.

And in the forest proper, I’ve never seen such a heterogeneous mix of pines and deciduous. A step this direction and two new species of trees appear, a step this way and three more. There must be a dozen within the first stand of old growth I encountered, which prompted me to do some Googling and read that there are over 73,000 species of tree species in the world.

But it’s not enough to have a couple dozen different kinds in the mix, because even individual stands are in different seasons. Some trees are dressed in summer greens, others mottled with autumn.

And the leaves fall differently here. Back home, a rustling wind shakes down the birch leaves in groups. But here the air is still under the tree canopy high overhead, and desiccated leaves fall alone, clacking against branches on the way down. “Clack, clack, clack” says a crinkled leaf as it falls. Silence. Another. “Clack, clack”

The peaceful forest lulls me, laying me down on a bed of bark. And looking skyward I see its become a shade darker, and I encounter the first chirps of a cricket. It’s an unexpected brilliance, like listening to Keep the Streets Empty for Me for the first time and the pan flutes start. As the sun sets I lay on the log it hearkens memories of laying in a redwood stump in NorCal, taking it all in. Both moments were the most blissfully peaceful ones of their respective years, watching the tree canopy hundreds of feet overhead in the north, listening to bugs chirp at different altitudes of branches of leaves all around in the south.

But at night the beasty creatures come out, and as I was hiking in the dark back to the Yamaha something huge descended from its roost towards me, pulling back when it was just beyond arm’s reach. I must have just exhaled when it surprised me, because the yell that came out of me emerged as a strange, guttural yip of which I had no idea I was capable of making such a sound. I don’t know if I was more scared from the huge swooping bat, or myself.

But it’s alright, in another moment the scary monster is gone and I’m happy to report I didn’t piss myself. Not this time!

Another day comes and the beetles are out with me. I haven’t seen this kind before, which are congruent with the patch of old foliage they scramble over. Fascinating, and well worth the time I spent with them! Another hiker happened upon me and asked if I was OK when they saw me on the ground not moving. I hadn’t even realized they were there since I had been focusing on this little guy. Cute on this scale, creepy any bigger. I think their inherent creepiness stems from the fact they’re so unrelateable.  With curling antennae and thumping wings and chitinous armor for skin they are alien to us and the subject of horror flicks because of it.  Maybe the disconcerting aspect is the emotional dissonance.  The absence of emotions.  They're purely instinctual creatures, unburdened by feelings.  There's a primordial gap between us.

Shooting forest landscapes is usually a real bitch in terms of composition. A photographer’s job is often to be a guide for the viewer as they explore the subject matter we’re presenting to them. Sometimes photographs are like a game where the viewer plays connect-the-dots between picture elements. It can be a rewarding experience to follow a journey in a photograph, just as it can be frustrating if one’s eyes go from one thing to another, then back again, in the pursuit of trying to figure out what I’m trying to show them. As a viewer it’s tiresome to be jerked around like that, and if one must ask the question “what am I supposed to be looking at?” then I’ve probably failed as a photographer in delivering a good image. So for this reason I try to not confuse the viewer and lead them astray. But there’s always so damn much going on with vines, branches, etc in a forest scene that it turns into chaos and it’s hard to know where to look.

At least, that’s what the rules of photography say. But really there are no solid rules. For as long as rules have been studied and researched and applied and a formula developed for what makes the perfect picture, there are always exceptions and contradictions. Sometimes a photograph that breaks all the rules is amazing, and sometimes it’s fun to just get lost in an image. So here, now, let’s get lost in the forest.