East Coast Photo-Bloggin': Requesting Permission

Here on the East Coast, the indigenous natural beauty is quite different from that of the West. We don't have the majesty of the mountains or the grandeur of giant trees, or the thousand-foot gorges, or the moraines, or the canyons, or the snow-capped peaks, or the painted deserts. We have something different ... something less awesome, perhaps, but something cozier and less intimidating ... something warmer, something earthier, something lusher ... something less rugged and more voluptuous ... something older, softer, and greener.


Woodland stream, Baldwin, Maryland

(Continued below the fold ...)



Those of us with no time to travel to any sizable East Coast wilderness areas must appreciate this beauty where we can find it. In the overdeveloped Mid-Atlantic region, that's often in small pockets surrounded by concrete and plastic. Having grown up in a rural area and watched the suburbs spread like a disease, I learned to seek out and be satisfied with these microcosms of wilderness. It doesn't take much to fall in love with them.


Gunpowder Falls near Notchcliff, April, 2003. Please click the picture to see a larger, better rendition.


The difference in scope mandates a difference in focus. Here, you can't focus outward to far the canyon walls or the distant mountains. Instead, you have to draw your focus in, to the immediate surroundings, to the acre in which you happen to be. That becomes your wilderness.


Small glade, Loch Raven watershed. Please click the picture to see a larger, better rendition. (You may have to scroll to see the whole picture.)


Much of the beauty is in the details: a particular grove of willows or bend in the creek, a specific patch of woods or path through a meadow, even individual trees, rocks, patches of moss, and patches of sunlight. Instead of the wide-open spaces, we have the narrow-open spaces. You learn to see a panorama in a forest canopy or the surface of a pond.


The obligatory close-up of ferns in dappled sunlight, with (profound) apologies to Eliot Porter (and anyone like him). Please click the picture to see a larger, better rendition.


I've been photographing the local nature-spots for over forty years. "Local" means extremely local: in the metropolitan area where I live, mostly within a fifteen-mile radius of where I grew up. Most of my pictures are not from famous Eastern wilderness areas. They're from local forests, parks, farms, watersheds, and wildlife areas, some of which are only a few dozen acres in size. Even the smallest of them is special to me. I was lucky enough to grow up in the midst of them, and I've spent time across most of my life discovering, exploring, and visiting them. To me, they're more than nature preserves and oases of beauty -- they're home.


Little Gunpowder Falls, near Pleasantville Road. Please click the picture to see a larger, better rendition.


With the permission of Tom and his readership, I'd like to share these pictures (and associated thoughts and memories) occasionally. The pictures vary in quality (due to changes in both the equipment used and the skills of the photographer!), but I'm hoping that even some of the less refined ones might be worth a look. I'm relying on all of you to let me know if I start turning into the jerk who tortures his guests with home movies.

Oh, and ... one final note to you West-Coast types ... (click here)

[That's all, folks]