Crossing the Swamp

There is a trail near my home that I know intimately. During the long winter of Alaska’s interior, I ride my fat bike along the trail’s 7 mile length about three times a week. I know it by the low angle winter sun, by the blue light of dusk, and by the single white beam of a helmet-mounted light. I can anticipate every turn, every dip, every climb and descent. When a passing snow-machine has churned up the snow to create a new ramp or rut, I know it.

And yet, that trail that I criss-cross so often in winter becomes a mystery to me during the months when snow does not lie on the ground. Like many trails through the boreal forest, large sections grow swampy, and crossing these mires can be an exercise in frustration. So I don’t often venture up there in the summer.

Because of this, it is a place both familiar and mysterious.

In other words, it’s a little like photography.

Through our cameras, we grow accustomed to seeing the world in a familiar way. We fall into comfortable routines, and repeat the styles and techniques that have worked for us in the past. Like my neighborhood trail that I know only in winter, there are unknowns (perhaps strange and remarkable unknowns), waiting just outside the door. Also, like my trail, there are likely to be a few quagmires to hold us back, make us dirty and smelly, and try to prevent us from venturing further away from what is known and comfortable.

How to escape?

It’s easy to say “try something new”, as though a landscape photographer would suddenly find success in the studio or a street-photographer should grab a long lens and chase wildlife. Though that might help, it isn’t really a matter of trying something new, it’s a matter of exploring what we already know in greater depth.

For me, that might mean crossing a literal bog, as I will have to do when I finally venture up my trail to see what is there in the summer. Or it might mean expending the effort to make an image you’ve dreamed about for years. We’ve all got them, don’t we? That shot in our heads that we know we can make, but for whatever reason, haven’t?

I know I’ve got mine, dozens of em’.

With a little effort (well, probably a LOT actually), we may be able to see some of what lies beneath the surface, beneath the melting snow. We may discover a new way to see our familiar landscape simply by forcing ourselves to wander out when it isn’t comfortable, easy, or fun.

For a few years I’ve had a personal project simmering on a mental back burner. It’s one I think of regularly, make images for occasionally, and consider what to do with, almost never. The boil has been rising recently, steaming incessantly, and is now starting to fog the windows. Perhaps it is time for me to tend to that steaming pot, and start creating the images I’ve been mentally composing for years.

Time to pull on my boots and cross that swamp.

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