All Works

Most of these were taken off-trail. I pick a general direction and let curiosity handle the rest, which means I end up in places without a road, without a path, and without cell service. You can spend a season in this country and never see anyone — and if you do, one of you goes another direction.

That last part changes how you look. I cannot identify anything in the field — no signal, no book in the pack. I find something, photograph it, and figure out what it was weeks later. The curiosity has to come first. The answer is what you get for having noticed.

Three series, sorted by what you are looking at. Weathered Time is where you can see how long something took. Quiet Resilience is what is alive right now, somewhere that is not making it easy. Remnants is what outlasted whatever made it.

None of the subjects are rare. Bark, sap, lichen, dead grass, a leaf with holes eaten through it. I walked a long way for these particular ones, and you do not have to — whatever is within a hundred feet of where you are sitting has about the same amount going on.

Here is why you have walked past most of this. The sharp part of your vision covers about the area of your thumbnail held at arm's length. Everything outside that, your brain fills in from memory and expectation — which is usually close enough, and occasionally wrong. It is not carelessness. You were never actually looking at most of it.