For Leslie Kiefer, Sean O'Hagen and Robert Adams

Life's twists lead on. Leslie sent me links to her winter beeches, a motif I've obsessed over, and to Sean O'Hagen's Guardian piece about long-time favorite Robert Adams, pushing a button unknowingly. Her rhythmical trunks and pale, twisted leaves, and Adams' B&W ways of conveying connections to place connected with me, Nehalem Bay State Park, from This Day, 2009 especially. I revisited recent images made after another unexpected turn.

Expecting to hike in Shenandoah NPA two weeks ago, I pulled into the shopping center meeting place by 8:00 - and found no hikers. Wondering what happened and what to do, I returned to this fallen beech. This accident, the grey winter woods, the tatooed beech body, the silvered day, Leslie Kiefer, Sean O'Hagen and Robert Adams all conspired unwittingly to cause a color photographer go grey.

Series have become my method.

Thorofare Mtn. Bushwhack

Thoroughfare not

 Nearing Pinnacle Peak (according to Richard's map)

Pinnacle

Reticulated ice momentarily moves my mind from bushwhacking fatigue.

Mt. St. Alban - Indoors on a Wet Winter Day

Starting below ground and ascending above Washington's highest height, the Nat Cat and surrounding  Olmsted-designed gardens and grounds create a restorative haunt. Inside and out, sumptuous design and craftsmanship blend elements of light and flora in Gothic motifs and tracery. Forbidden recesses and soaring spaces express hierarchies in darkness and light, low and high.  I find the place as provocative as it is evocative. Ever photo-friendly after all these years, tripods are still permitted.