Happy New Year! Programming resumes with the second entry in my series on photographing trees. Find the whole series here.

Two

Persist

Central Florida. Summer. The sun had barely crossed the horizon, and I already felt like a plastic spatula that ended up in the pots and pans cycle by mistake. Sunrises are supposed to be peaceful and moving affairs, but any light that emerged through the branches just exposed how much I’d sweat.

The trail beneath my feet was just as uncooperative. It had the consistency of a dough with too much flower. I didn’t leave footprints so much as knead the mixture with my shoes, which meant I needed to take exaggerated vertical steps like I was wearing snow shoes. It almost made sense to fashion a giant rolling pin out of the downed trunks around me and roll along like a cartoon lumberjack.

Despite all this, spirits were high. This trek was one of many I made this past summer in an effort to explore the open spaces surrounding Orlando during the long summer days. I had no goal in mind other than to go, and even in the hot-wet wet-hot of it all, it was satisfying enough to have gotten there.

As I worked my way down the trail, I shamefully got my ego boosted even further from the tripod on which my camera was mounted. Few things make a photographer look or feel more official than hoisting their equipment over their shoulder like an ax. My toys became a toolkit, the world a workbench. Embarrassingly, it feels good. It feels like control.

I covered more ground. When I stopped to compose an image, a realization descended. I could no longer hear cars passing on the nearest roads. In the moment’s truest sense, I was alone. My egotistical high dissolved instantaneously after remembering I was in the presence of giants that thrived in the conditions I could barely tolerate.

It feels like control.

The oldest living tree is nearly 5000 years old. The largest is almost 300 feet tall and over 30 feet wide. Their roots can penetrate rock and pull water from hundreds of feet beneath the surface. They can withstand fire, hurricanes, and earthquakes. For stationary entities that do not witness much of the world, they seem to understand it far better than we ever could.

Then again, do we really understand the natural world? To some degree, probably, but certainly not in a way that feels symbiotic. It’s hard to defend the idea that we behave respectfully as cohabitants. Maybe that’s what a hundred centuries of drifting apart does. One epoch after another, we’ve cut our ties and moved on to greener (post-industrial) pastures. Still, it appears we can’t shake the thought that we might still have feelings for our old partner. At what point does the desire to hike, visit a zoo, or fall asleep to a live feed from a trail cam turn us into nature’s ex, unhealthily keeping tabs on what they’re up to?

Perhaps that’s why technology, photographic and otherwise, has become so good at pretending we see things through non-human eyes. Virtually tour a home with a chameleon’s three-hundred and sixty degree field of vision. Mount a camera on a helicopter for a bird’s eye view of traffic. Use a night vision camera to make sure no one rifles through your garbage.

Take a tripod into the forest to cosplay the stability of a root system.

Much like sand into my shoes, a little bit of dread slipped into my mind and got wedged in the wrinkles. These outings no longer felt like a reunification with a simpler self. It felt like a performance. Nature stopped feeling natural. Am I supposed to be here?

“Do you mind if we pass you? Don’t want to mess up your shot.”

I spun around to see a couple out for their morning jog. I didn’t even notice that I’d framed a shot in the middle of the trail. I apologized for blocking the route, but they were not bothered at all. They passed, and I couldn’t help but pick up on how happy they were. It was clear this was their favorite part of the day. They continued on their run. The man said something to his partner, and as they rounded the corner and left my line of sight, I heard her laugh.

Run, talk, laugh.

Run, talk, laugh.

My mind kept replaying the scene. There was something in it from which I couldn’t move on, and it brought me out of this cynical mood I’d settled in. It was such a beautiful jewel of humanity shared between two people. They'd taken parts of themselves and given them to each other, and in the exchange created something that will persist because it is mutual.

Before this encounter, I was about to head home. After, I decided to march on after the couple. Not to find them, but to find what they had made as it appeared in the world around them.

To photograph a tree is to honor your inner persistence. We cannot be as large or as everlasting as the trees around us, but the willingness to build and connect and endure is still there. Roots will take hold. What’s more natural than that?

Thank you for your time.

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