We Went for a Walk

My current project is to review all the photographs I have taken in the past 50 years, toss out the chaff, select ones that mean something to me, note it, and store it in a safe place. Each of my children will get a digital copy.

Some images which seemed important at one time don’t seem so much now. Family snapshots are much more prized to me, as they should be.

In this current period of heightened uncertainty, the work becomes more urgent.

The one included in this blog is not of my family, but it is important, to me. And I took it while on vacation with my wife.

It was in 1981. We were driving in Yosemite, over the top, heading for Wawona and the big trees.

The landscape is rocky and hard. This juniper was only about 3 feet tall. Looks taller in the photograph. All gnarly and twisted. No telling how old it was then. No telling if it is still there now, because I wouldn’t know where to find it if I went looking.

Judging by the twists and textures, and the gray weathered wood it had seen a few hard seasons.

The trite symbolism is still appropriate; the lessons of life, hard knocks. suffering in a harsh world, finding a spot to grow only in the barest of soil, it leaves us bent and spent. Nothing wrong with timeworn symbols when they are truly timeworn.

(Nikon FM2, 55mm lens. Kodachrome 25. Scanned using Nikon D7500 and 28-105 zoom macro. Edited in Lightroom).

Selah