The Friend Across the Ravine
“Briar Patch Companion”, Early Spring 2025
This springtime in the Southeastern U.S., I felt a vivid sense of invigoration and motivation almost every time I visited the woods of a nearby mountain. Despite the constant distractions of a restless news cycle, I felt more attuned to nature's rhythms this year. In late April, I was very glad to receive a gentle reminder of a simple lesson nature had taught me years ago, when I tended to be more receptive to such things: that the beauty of life, in all its complex and varied forms, tends to show up in unexpectedly simple ways.
Our forests here in the Tennessee-Georgia mountains are chaotic and tricky to navigate, both physically and creatively, with a camera. Brambles, deadfall, saplings, vines and other havoc form the understory of the woodlands I enjoy, but every so often, standing above the mess, a new friend waves hello and asks for my attention. I have learned to heed these silent gestures—not just for the nice images they sometimes yield, but also for the relationships they can help build. Attention almost always develops into intention.
The quiet waves are a welcome sight, as modern life has a way of keeping my mind wrestling with itself over mundane things like politics, job stresses and (perhaps not so mundanely) the reconciliation of my personal values with the beliefs of some of the people I am close to. Contrasting strongly against the noise and tedium of the manufactured world, I’ve found the forest to be full of warm welcome, and I’ll gladly accept a humble “hello” from a stationary stranger on my dark days.
It was from a winding, apprehensive inner life, combined with the physically painful tangles of vines and thorns in these woodlands, that I found myself happy to rest in the shade of a newly grown light-green canopy, setting down my backpack and allowing my heart to slow after hiking up a steep hill. The reason I’d stopped wasn't to shed a layer or to take a pee; it was because someone, not a person, had waved at me and it would have felt rude to keep hiking.
On this partly cloudy day in Spring, a tree’s slender arms formed countless Vs and Ys as it stood out against the darkness of the forest. It drew my attention from across a steep, cluttered ravine, just as thin clouds passed overhead and my breath rose and fell loudly in my head. The shifting light revealed textures of cracked bark that had been concealed in shadow on previous visits. Relief caught my eye, and a different kind of relief washed over me. It was time to go make an introduction.
I crossed the dark gully through several thickets of blackberry, earning a few new holes in my old T-shirt. Tucked between the chest-high branches of briars, I found slippery footing among embedded boulders still plastered with brown, decomposed leaves from the winter, as well as saturated lichen. I pictured a video game character hopping between rounded platforms in a sea of lava, but the going wasn’t exactly fun or exciting. A few choice words crossed my lips, but I managed to slowly negotiate the cluster without dampening my enthusiasm.
Finally, having reached the beckoning giant, I set down my camera bag and stood still, finding it surprisingly easy to ignore my ruminations and mental chatter. A quiet gratitude began to warm inside me as my breathing settled. I silently thanked the new oak for sharing its space—away from the chaotic, nagging thorns that had slowed my approach, and for the emotional distance it offered from lingering motivational setbacks, negative self-talk, and ever-present imposter syndrome.
“Reawakening”, Late Spring 2025 - A newer friendship realized just a few weeks later, after three years exploring its mountainside home.
The tree had an impressive yet unassuming presence, quietly overtaking my sense of purpose. Not a giant, nor a dwarf—just somewhere in between, ordinary in most ways. Looking upward, I realized I stood too close to frame a worthy portrait, but I reached out to touch the old oak with my hand, red with new scratches, out of respect. It would have felt too rushed and transactional to photograph it right away, to force a superficial relationship, without proper introduction.
This was the first sweat I’d felt while visiting here since early Autumn, and the new humidity caused my clothes to stick to my skin. As the forest thickened with even more undergrowth in the coming weeks, sweat would become a real hindrance to my mood and motivation. This place would inevitably fill with ticks, snakes, and hornets—creatures best avoided until the cooler temperatures of Fall drive them into the forest floor. Today, thankfully, shade worked alongside a generous breeze to cool my thoughts and emotions. It would be good to make some photos with help from my new buddy—this oak, who I realized in fact had secretly watched me walk past a dozen times already. We had just met, at last, and our next encounter couldn’t be guaranteed here on the edge of approaching Summer.
Clouds couldn’t be seen through the canopy, but I knew many passed overhead because of their effect on the trunk and appendages. Sunlight transitioned noticeably from extremely bright and spotted, to boring, dark, and flat. Somewhere in between, the curve of the trunk and angles of the branches were afforded some dimension by waves of diffused, directional light. This was the sweet spot, and my new pal looked best in softness. I took a few steps out from the trunk, then a few more, and then several more, before slowly circling the tree to search for the best distribution of branches and balance between newborn foliage and surrounding flora. From this distance, I figured a short telephoto lens would work best.
Eventually we got there, working together between the clouds, to make something where once there was nothing. Nothing, only in the sense that my time with this oak did not exist before that day, and we never had anything to share with each other. I decided on an aspect ratio that honored the balance I discovered among its many branches. I turned the focus ring on my lens to crispen the oak’s torso, while I allowed some of its branches, and the background plant life, to slightly blur. This seemed to align with my experience of our first meeting, when I was catching my breath and could only see clearly a short distance ahead. Then, I gave my polarizing filter a last experimental twist to help decide how much shine, if any, the thousands of lime green leaves should impart to my camera’s sensor.
Perfect light came and went gently and, with the shutter finally released, I knew the relationship bridge between me and the one who waved had been crossed. My brief time with the oak might even yield an image we would both be proud of. Until I would eventually return to this patch, whether in two days or in a couple of months, I would remain grateful for our time together and the simple lessons I relearned throughout our visit. They say creativity is not a linear process, and I’ve realized that neither is a person’s openness to the things they consider beautiful.
I wouldn’t know for a couple of weeks how much I actually liked the photograph. At first, it felt almost too spare—too quiet in its simplicity—or a bit obvious at times. But over time, something began to shift. I kept returning to it, almost unconsciously, as if drawn by a calm presence. The composition, which at first seemed elementary and straight on, began to reveal a quiet elegance I hadn’t appreciated at first glance. The open-handed gesture of the branches, the balance of the scene, the way the light slipped gently across the frame—none of it demanded attention, yet all of it held its own kind of grace. It was like getting to know someone who doesn't speak loudly but whose words live on in memory. Within the four corners, I found something lasting—not in complexity, but in clarity.
“Memory of the Present”, Winter 2024 - A few acquaintances I finally got to know better at the end of last year.
Most trees demand more than one meeting to make their best photograph and, just as with people, sometimes the truest friends are not the ones who dazzle you at first but the ones who invite you to keep looking and listening. During our visit, I knew in my gut there was something there—a trust, an ease, an openness. Now, I wanted to spend more time with this photograph, and with the tree itself, to learn its subtle language and changing characteristics. Its quiet and welcoming posture, its weathered limbs, its particular ways of catching the wind and living in harmony with neighbors.
These things don’t reveal themselves in a single snapshot moment. They ask for patience, and they reward it with depth. Like any meaningful relationship, the more time I gave it, the more beauty I found waiting to be seen. This friendly oak, which had long been a hidden, unseen presence, will be a trusty companion on all my future walks through the briars.
