Walking in Woods. Body of Work, Assignment 4. First Thoughts

Walking in Woods

I walked into the wood.  It was dark, and green.  Green leaves, green grass, green tinges on tree trunks; even the air seemed green.  It was also raining; steady, gentle summer rain.  I love woods in the wet. There were gentle sounds of water everywhere: the susurration of the rain itself and the steady drip, drip of drops off leaves and undergrowth.  Later, the sun came out and drops of water sparkled like jewels, each holding a perfect, inverted image of the world around it.  This was one of the Lincolnshire Limewoods, relicts of the original primeval wilderness in this part of England.  After the last ice age the whole of this region was forested with small leaved lime and the Limewoods are one of the few remaining links to wilderness in Lincolnshire.  My formative years were spent roaming these woods, developing a deep love for nature that was to last a lifetime.  I knew every tree, birds nest and rare plant, where to find adders and the best places for newts and frogspawn.  I wanted to explore parts of the wood I didn’t know and so at the toss of a coin chose the first path and then alternately turned right and then left.  I became a forest flaneur for the day.  Bird song was a kind of ‘surround sound’; the hypnotic cooing of doves and pigeons, the harsh shrieking of jays, pneumatic drilling of woodpeckers, onomatopoeic song of the chiff chaff, the musical warble of blackcaps and from above the trees the wild mewing of a buzzard soaring overhead.  Flowers spangled the wood with colour: orchids, ragged robin, dog daisy, wild rose, honey suckle and many more.  The sense of smell was not neglected, with damp earthy scents of leaf mould and the occasional, floral notes of honeysuckle. 

Walking allows me to slow down and fully experience and appreciate the landscape that I travel through; to be a ‘human being’, rather than a ‘human doing’.  It not only provides exercise and improves health; it nourishes the mind, providing spiritual refreshment through contact with nature.  I find it a meditative experience and often, when walking in mountains, I have the feeling that I never want to come down.  Walking in woodland, particularly as a flaneur, as on this day, it is easy to lose and find oneself again, to reflect, meditate and absorb the natural world around me.  One day during a recent trip to France I was wandering in the Combeau Valley, high in the Vercors mountains, hunting for orchids and observing nature’s intimate details.  Towards the end of the day I lay down to rest, surrounded by wonderful flowers and views, to meditate and reflect on the day.  I lost myself in the changing patterns of the clouds above; my body became part of the land beneath me and my mind wandered among the clouds above.   These moments are transcendental, spiritual times during which I find it easy to believe in a creator god.  Despite being from a science background with a firm belief in evolution I can reconcile these two concepts in my mind: evolution being brought about by a creator.

Walking slowly enables me to marvel at the beauty of the world around me.  In particular, I enjoy the intricate, close-up detail of nature: the beauty of a lichen covered rock, or a moss encrusted tree, a weathered, silvered tree stump in a forest, the floor of a wood, detail of a fern or the beauty of a feather.  I love the interplay of the weather on the landscape: clouds, wind, rain, snow and even mist and fog.  I revel in the touch and feel of the detail of the land: the roughness of tree bark, the soft sponginess of moss, the crispness of dried lichen on a sun-warmed rock or the refreshing coolness of a mountain stream.  When walking I enjoy seeking out and photographing the intricate detail of nature, the ordinary, the detail unnoticed by most people, things that most would walk straight past; I like to uncover the hidden aspects of a place, to ‘make visible the invisible’. 

The natural world is important to me and during my walks I delight in my observations.  I particularly enjoy woodland and this summer have walked in woods in Lincolnshire, The Lake District, Scotland and the Cevennes and Vercors mountains of France.  Photographing nature’s intimate landscapes means that the images could be anywhere; there is no need, as is the tendency in modern landscape photography, to plant my tripod legs in the marks of those who have gone before.  Gone is the need to photograph in ‘picturesque’ weather, in fact I prefer overcast and even rainy conditions.  Gone, also is need for ‘picturesque and ‘sublime’ locations.  The intimate, close-up detail of nature can be found everywhere: in rural settings, our edgeland wildernesses, beach and saltmarsh, mountains and even industrial settings and gardens.  In industrial settings, particularly, nature is adept at reclaiming her own.

I share my feelings about nature through photography and in the current uncertain times for our planet I entertain positive feelings for its future and hope that I am not photographing its final days.