35mm Artifacts - Wildlife

I brake for turtles. 

 

Early on in my then still nascent shooting career, I understood I'd never be a wildlife photographer.

 

 

It wasn't that I couldn't, necessarily. It was that I wouldn't. Too many complications stood in the way.

 

In essence, I'd have needed to uproot my entire life to legitimately chase that dream. No wildlife on the prairie to speak of, back then.

Little buggers, mostly.

 

And of course birds. Which no matter what size or location are damned fast and generally required specialized gear to do really well.

Stinkin' birds know you're there before you do.

 

Plus, I already knew Heather. That settled that.

 

So as with other youthful dreams, 'northwoods wildlife photographer' went in the bin.

 

Right on top of "I want to be a field herpetologist when I grow up."

 

Just because I'd prudently surrendered a frail dream doesn't mean I ignored opportunity on the wing.

 

But wildlife capture became strictly a crime of opportunity, not a goal. After the Linhof, I rarely if ever did it at all.

 

Meanwhile, my eye wandered in the woods while I happily continued to take what what came.

 

Repeat failure piled high.

 

I learned to look with fresh eyes at the real world through a lens.

 

Necessity became the mother of creative invention.

But as ever, I continued to brake for turtles...

 

Snow Eagles

Ice storm today.

No ton's of showy snow like distant years past, but still. A new normal.

Speaking of eagles..

 

Late 70's probably, word came to the prairie that bald eagles were again wintering around dams along the Mississippi River. Heather and I set off to see for ourselves.

And we did. This one, an immature bird beset on the ice by crows:

 

Then while trudging through yet more snowy woods towards yet another brisk overlook on the mighty river, at a small clearing in quiet forest we found these.

 

It'd never occurred to us that eagles made snow angels.

On a winter afternoon spent roaming high above the Mississippi River back when only a few eagles were anywhere, they taught us better.

 

 

#snow angels

An Embarrassment of Bears

 

First appropriated then liberally reconfigured to better suit the needs of a New Age, spirit animal is today a fraught term. Nonetheless, the all knowing Internet informs us one's spirit animal may change with the seasons of life.

Whatever they're properly called and wherever they come from, all I can say for certain is that mine have.

When still a young man, it was definitely an eagle. I get that's inexplicable.

 

Then, the lower 48 was down to about 400 breeding pairs of Bald Eagles, where once the national bird (no less) had widely thrived. Not one of those was anywhere near my childhood prairie.

Remnant hawks and the occasional passing falcon ruled there. I didn't know jack from eagles.

 

But the Northwoods is bred into me. And what youngster doesn't want to soar, one way or another?

Eagle it was.

 

Then during my prime, I came to know the wolf best.

In 1974, they released four grey wolves into Michigan's Upper Peninsula. None of those lived, because one way or the other we killed them.

 

Except by then northern wildness wasn't just in my maternal blood, as with each passing year I'd thrust everything I had ever farther into it.

One might soar above the great forest, yet never truly know it. Deep woods must be prowled for to know.

I determined to prowl. Wolf it was.

Though there weren't any of those yet in my vast northwoods. So it's not like I'd any earthly experience with wolves, either.

Eventually the grey wolf returned to its ancestral forest flown over by eagles. Including the one who once stared me down with the most sentient eyes I've ever seen.

No fear. No aggression. Just... Well?

Well indeed.

 

Today we've a sizable population of eagles, nationwide. They even soar over my native prairie.

Transient wolves are occasionally reported on the flatlands. Most of those are dogs or coyote. What wolves there've been typically prowl down from the north on their way somewhere else, provided they survive our patchwork passage.

Same's true for black bears, of late.

 

Like Boy Scouts, bears do their best to always be prepared.

That sort of thing requires advance planning executed on an ad hoc basis through perpetual maintenance and bears are experts at it.

So apparently, bears dig efficient workflow. I'm down with that.

 

When opportunity presents, they make themselves completely content better than any ever-watchful eagle or hyper aware wolf can. It's in bears' nature to do.

 

They like apples, too. Maybe that's just coincidence, but still.

 

I'd bet any old bear currently hibernating in a hole beneath a northern blanket of snow knows what time it is.

That while the cruelest of winter might well lie ahead, the shortest of its days are behind. As yet one more winter in a growing long line rides seasonal gloom toward resurgent green spring, wildness translates the word.

 

And still for today, the best bet is to dream on.

 

Bear it is then.

 

Happy New Year

Forward.

Winter Solstice, 2022

 

Searching for first ice...

 

 

 

 

 

Water is life.

#solstice

Journey's End – Ten Years After

 

The original Odyssey was designed to have a beginning, a middle and an end. I returned to the field one last time in November 2022, sure that I'd reached my end in more ways than one.

I carried with me all the film in the world I had left. It wasn't much.

 

Late season light along Superior's southern shore ranges from stark to sublime with little room between. Given the limitations of film, the light often proved nettlesome.

By then, I was well prepared for that.

 

Each successive day of fieldwork got squeezed a bit harder at both ends. There simply weren't many productive hours to be had, regardless of conditions.

And it was cold.

 

The final day of my Superior Odyssey went by lickety split.

As light ran short, I headed to where the wild Presque Isle River enters deep Ottawa National Forest on its way to the big lake.

In other words, I went home.

 

That afternoon, the woods were silent.

 

Not even birds uttered any sound.

 

Only my beloved wild river spoke softly to me.

 

With the last of my film, I responded.

 

The light grew increasingly difficult.

 

Time ran out.

 

After 26,000+ miles over 14 grueling months and with 20 sheets of short-dated large format transparency still left to my name, I shut down 30+ years of fieldwork and called it a career.

By then I was physically, emotionally and professionally spent. Can't say I was exactly unhappy to see it all end, in the moment.

The car at least, could be made warm.

 

A year or so later, Heather informed me I couldn't not be a photographer any longer.

The wholly unexpected transition over to digital capture caused this entire project to evolve from original intent into...

Something else, over time.

They say Man makes plans, god laughs.

So here we are, ten long and still reasonably productive years after.