How to Photograph a Tree

The final entry in the tree series. In June 2021, I went camping with family friends in Colorado. In 2020, the Cameron Peak fire engulfed this area for nearly 5 months. This is what I remember fraaom my time there one year after it ended. Thank you all for reading. Find the full series here.

New things coming soon.

We pulled in to the lot and found the rest of our friends. They were further up the road, already at the campsite. The site sat on an excavated plateau at the end of a steep dirt road. This campground reminded me of a model village sitting on a wall shelf. The mountains across the river were these giants watching us in our tiny hovels.

The two-lane highway fell away to our left as we drove up the hill; it looked like we were taking off. A grove of trees had been in the way before, but now I had a better look at the mountains. After their size, your eyes can’t help but focus on what wasn’t there.

The forest was gone. Everything on the other side of the river burned away in a fire, leaving behind a charred ridge that was scalped of any greenery.

The Cameron Peak fire broke out about one year before our visit. It burnt 200,000 acres in the mountains near Fort Collins. Six thousand people needed to evacuate. Flames shot huge plumes of smoke out of the forest for 3 months and the resulting smog settled across the front range like syrup in the crevices of a keyboard. White skies followed blood-red sunrises.

At first, the fire and its consequences demanded your attention. How could it not? The novelty, uncertainty, and anxiety crawled in and sat at the bridge of your nose. Were you in the burn path? What about anyone you know, would they be impacted? Is it ok to breathe in this much smoke?

Then summer became fall. This was 2020, so plenty of other headlines fought for attention. An immense wall of energy raged many miles away, yet for most of Denver, myself included, it was demoted from “the thing” to another thing to check in on. You made sure friends and family were safe, checked air quality forecasts, and then got on with it. Milk. Eggs. Smoke. Disturbing sunset. Cheese.

The way we relate to forest fires is interesting. It’s the only natural disaster which can be considered “a tool”. Controlled burns occur all the time, sometimes with cheery piano music underneath. Some forests depend on the flames to trigger their reproduction mechanisms and to shake up the soil for better nutrients. I suppose you technically could say that about tornados, but only if they also get to be considered a freight transportation service.

Simultaneously, a forest fire is the only natural disaster which can be directly linked to the actions of one person. That hypothetical chump (you, me, the commuter flicking their cigarette into the dead pine needles) gets full control of the apocalyptic joystick. ONLY YOU can destroy it all.

One year later, long after the fire had been extinguished, here we were, camping at the edge of a phenomenal rampage.

I really wanted to explore that dead forest.

I wanted to know and see everything that happened here. The property manager stopped by to introduce herself, and I was so curious to hear about her experience with the events that took place across the river. She didn’t bring it up.

None of us asked either. Even with the curiosity, it felt wrong to pry. I was sure nearly losing her business was something she wasn’t eager to discuss. The folks I was camping with weren’t impacted by the fire any more than I was, so all we could do was wonder about what it felt like to be here with a mountain on fire.

From then on I started to think. I saw the trail that led down to the river. It wasn’t flowing that high. Could I cross it? Safely? Time to find out.

I made a break for it the following morning before the sun could shine a light on my decision. Like an addict about to relapse, I ignored all the mental escape routes that logic and basic camping safety could throw at me. My phone had no signal and my shoes weren’t waterproof. Evidently the base of Maslow’s pyramid couldn’t fit in my gear.

I navigated the narrow descent and it spat me out at the base of the river. The reality of the situation came to light: the river was far too wide and the current was way too strong. The addict was cut off from his drug before he could really take a hit. My plans were foiled by the most sinister of truths: things look smaller when you are farther away from them.

It’s always surprisingly clarifying to realize you’ve been behaving like a moron. I have the type of brain that thinks something and then feels a certain way because of it. I thought it would be so cool to run into this demented landscape with every camera I own and make photographs until I starved. However, that fantasy immediately got shoved off stage by those feelings of guilt that seem to hunt all self-indulgent thoughts.

“Oh sure. People lost everything they own because of what happened here, but it’s all just a big playground for you isn’t it? Maybe you’ll find a deer skull with a flower growing out of it. Is that enough of a metaphor for you?” The search-and-rescue teams will be so impressed when they find YOUR skull.

Hardly an invalid point. There’s something to be said about silencing the inner critic, yet I doubt whoever coined that term meant literally killing it.

I walked along the river for awhile. I knew I couldn’t cross it, so I wanted to see what it had to offer. I’d come this far, so I may as well see what I could find. Almost on condescending cue, the morning sun reached into the canyon and the slopes lit up again.

I never felt like I’d been called out by Mother Nature before. After being stopped from running full speed into unsafe conditions, the landscape presented the most dynamic colors I’d seen since we arrived.

I’d heard repeatedly that the most impressive and meaningful works of art almost always come from some form of restraint. I accepted it as true before I really knew what it meant or how I’d encounter it in the wild. It’s such a deeper truth than “most isn’t always best”. It’s a willingness to leave stones unturned. It’s a willingness that can come by choice, but other times, it’s forced down your throat with thousands of gallons of mountain water per second.

I wanted so badly to photograph - to “have” - every tree and rock in that dead forest. Even if I could and I showed you all of them, what would be left for you to think about or to feel? I don’t know your favorite book, but I doubt it’s the dictionary.

This is not an indictment of exploration. Quite the opposite. Limitations, imagined or otherwise, force a deeper exploration that can create amazing outcomes. You can’t see everything, but only you can see with your perspective.

There is no forest. There are only trees.

Thank you for your time.

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