Coming Soon: Old Growth Blogging

As the script below the title of this blog indicates, I do engage in other pursuits beyond lawyering, idling and blogging. The two mentioned near the title are inextricably allied; the one always involves the other. Only rarely do I wander without photographing, and never am I able to photograph without at least several yards (and more often, several miles) of wandering. But I experience the two as wholly separate ventures, and I love each of them for mostly different, but overlapping reasons.

Almost all of the photography I do is outdoor nature photography. And to do it, I've hiked on and off trails, dived reefs, had a run-in with Texas's finest for (inadvertent, I assure you) trespassing, and sat for hours in front of prairie dog towns, tide pools and fields teeming with the audacious color of spring wildflowers. I've been close enough to an alligator to hear its soft grunts, and close enough to a wildfire to feel its heat and smell its searing, acrid odor. Every second has been a gift, and yet I know I have barely scratched the surface. So many others have done so much more.

For some time my shooting was limited to, collectively, a few weeks each year. The places I wanted to shoot were not within an easy distance of my home in the Midwest, and other things in my life demanded the time that I might otherwise have devoted to traveling and photography. Perceptions are all relative, of course. I used to fret constantly that I just couldn't make it to this or that Important Photography Destination that year, and maybe not even the next year. But to hear my friends and family tell it, I was always heading off to some far-flung place.

The beauty of life now is that my home is right in the middle of an Important Photography Destination. Many of the subjects I enjoy shooting most are within a thirty minute drive. Many more I can reach in a day. The price was leaving behind a circle of people I was intensely attached to. It took many months for me to realize that I before I moved, I enjoyed close proximity to "my" people and yet regretted the distance from my photography; but now it is time to enjoy my photography and yet regret the distance from my people.

But very soon I will be able to enjoy a little bit of both. A long-planned weekend in the California Redwoods is almost upon us. Friends of long standing and deep attachment will converge on a little cabin in Northern California next weekend. There will be incessant talking and hysterical laughter, and there will be hiking and a heavy photography pack.

The weekend after will see the Trailhead Family making for the wilds of Northwest Montana, the place that is the most difficult for us to leave once we find ourselves there. Trailhead Kid will spend time bathing in the extravagantly adoring aura that only grandmothers can generate, while TK's parents hit the backcountry in Glacier National Park making lots of noise and yelling "Hey, bear!" around every blind corner. And again, there will be a heavy photography pack.

And because I am a magnet for the ridiculous, there will almost certainly be fodder for blogging.