Summer is a difficult time for me to shoot in the Mid-Atlantic. The air is thick and warm well into the evening. The sun never sets, and even after it does, it emerges shortly thereafter in the bleak hours of the morning - a scorched orb that instantly casts its light across the land, glazing the world over with a startling heat. Golden hours are virtually non-existent - even more so for a sleepy post-call intern savoring his rare day or so away from the hospital. By the time I manage to hit the trail, the rich color of the Baltimore woodlands has inevitably faded into an inscrutably dense mass of shimmering leaves and sunbeams. Broad summer daylight: a high-contrast environment that has always been challenging for me, and this year seemed to demand a new approach.
A few months ago, I came across a weathered old copy of The Unforeseen Wilderness, a lovely tribute to Kentucky's Red River Gorge by the American novelist and poet Wendell Berry - a man who could be considered, if anyone could, as the definitive voice of Kentucky as a natural and cultural place. This short series of essays, sketching Berry's explorations of the gorge, played no small part in a decades-long struggle over a proposed dam to control the Red River. Today, the river remains un-dammed, its canyon un-flooded, and its forests and sandstone arches a hallmark of federal conservation and scenic beauty. Berry's writings in The Unforeseen Wilderness are accompanied by a number of black-and-white photographs taken by his friend and fellow adventurer, Ralph Eugene Meatyard. Meatyard himself was well known for his distinctively haunting images of the rural American South; here, his keen eye for form and shape - for creative framing and soft contrast - lent itself well to woodland photography. I found myself mesmerized by these monochrome plates depicting rotting logs, hollowed caves, pebbly streambeds, and overgrown boulders gleaming in sunlight.
Meatyard's work in the Red River Gorge is my inspiration for this series of photographs, all captured in the woodlands surrounding Baltimore at the height of summer - between July and August 2016. It is my attempt to set aside sweeping, full-palette landscapes (which was heartbreakingly difficult, if I'm being honest), and to focus on a more intimate vision of landscape photography - namely, how the woods feel to me. The sensation of being surrounded by trees. Of finding a bit of room to sit, in a warm enclosure underneath the forest canopy. Of looking around and marveling at the full force of plant life. The rich details of leaf and bark.
Of course, I'm not sure if I'll be able to continue forsaking color once autumn rolls down from the north. Rather, the hope is that this project will stretch my boundaries, and help me see more beauty in tiny places - places not so far from home. Time is difficult to come by nowadays, and the beautiful places are many.
