Many-Colored Skirt - a photo on Flickriver

Many-Colored Skirt

            This was taken in the fall of 2020, as the pandemic stretched on but before we had vaccinations available. Travel was still quite restricted so to satisfy my craving for some adventure and some photography, I loaded my kayak and headed to the Black River where I had previously explored some of the oldest trees on the US east coast, a large stand of Cypress trees in the Black River of Eastern NC. I was hoping to find some color, similar to what I had seen in Lake Caddo and Louisiana bayou in previous years. It was getting a little late in the season, in to early Nov. but I found some leaves were still on the trees. This particular branch on a lovely old tree reminded me of an elderly woman trying on a colorful but threadworn old skirt to remind herself of more carefree days. I could tell she must've been a spectacular beauty in her heyday. Or perhaps I was just going a bit stir crazy and my imagination was running amok. Probably that.

The story of the mist on the water is an amusing one. Paddling with an expensive camera on ones lap is a precarious undertaking and inevitably water splashes on the lens. It was cold and my attempts to clean the water off the lens before the shot left a good smear of condensation on part of the lens. In a happy discovery it turns out that this is a pretty effective technique for simulating mist. So completely unintentionally I got the misty still dark water imsge I've always craved on these paddling trips. The bit of misty effect helps but the star of this is without a doubt the old grande dam cypress with her colorful skirt. Paddling among these magnificent old trees is a mystical experience, with or without any actual mist (sorry couldn't help the bad pun).

As a final note, I haven't posted in a long time. It's been a busy year but it's mostly because momentum is a curious thing. Once you stop for a while it's hard to get started again. I've had the intention of doing so many times this past year and just failed to get over the hurdle. Hopefully now that this one is out of the way the next one will be that much easier for me. To all my long-time Flickr friends I wish you the very best of holiday seasons greetings!

Taken on: December 27, 2024

Tags:

sky matthews photography

black river

tree

fall

color

North Carolina « less

Sets appears in: • North Carolina

Stats: 7,182 views / 44 comments

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