Category: Nature

Wild Orchids

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The beautiful German word Kalkmagerrasen means a calcareous low-nutrient meadow. Low nutrients implies few trees and shrubs, few weeds, but also some rare plants that had no chance to compete elsewhere. Among them are wild orchids, quite different form the ones I was familiar with before.

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The plants are between 20 and 40 cm tall, and show an enormous amount of detail. I took these pictures in 1997 in the Eiffel, using a flash. There wasn’t much choice, given wind and otherwise restricted means. This makes everything look artificial, which might well be ok.

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The names Knabenkraut and Ragwurz tell from times when imagination played a more important role than in our prefabricated days.

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Some of the shapes of the flowers are said to resemble the bodies of the insects they are trying to attract.

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That we, instead, see in them hangmen, is, of course, just telling something about us. Phew.

Beanblossoms Bottom Nature Preserve

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Southern Indiana is limestone country, and the rocky ground is sometimes less than ideal for farming. So people move north to Purdue, and the abandoned farms get converted into nature preserves.

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An excellent example is the Beanblossom Bottoms Nature Preserve, fabulously maintained by the Sycamore Land Trust.

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The fact that we are in former farmland here means that the landscape is more uniform than in a natural wooded area, as all plants are roughly at the same age.

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Little drainage canals and ponds are perfect spots to witness rapid growth and decay.

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There is nothing spectacular here that would merit a visit say from New York. But if you are seeking a contemplative view, there will always be a new one.

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Gestundete Zeit (Sand Art III)

My first digital camera was a Fuji Finepix 1400. Yes, the 1400 means that it had a staggering 1.4 Megapixels. That pretty much filled the screens these days, and also the memory cards. The first trip I took the camera to was to Amrum, an island in the North Sea. As I only had a really small memory card at first, I had to reduce the image size. Back then this was fine. Today they look puny.

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Visiting Amrum in winter seems like a dumb idea: No rolling in the dunes, no swimming in the sea during long summer nights. Instead, hikes along the frozen beach during brief days, and sauna in the evening.

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The tides flood the extended beaches and leave behind compelling patterns, which are brought out to perfection by the low sun.

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Freezing and thawing helps to make patterns that the waves alone don’t accomplish.

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The coastline looks like the alien landscape of a cratered moon.

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I wish I could come up with sculptures like these: Simple, but utterly compelling.

Trillium Sessile

Now that June has arrived, it is time to say goodbye to the trillium sessile, the most common trillium in Indiana.

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It is beautiful already in its budding state, where the characteristic 3-fold symmetry is broken.

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Like the four leaf clover, there is the rare exception of a quadrillium.

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Here is the same plant in full bloom.

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I have revisited the same spot in subsequent years, but haven’t seen it again. Some things are not meant for repetition.

Light

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After scanning some 400 negatives from pictures I took in the summer of 1990 (on my first hiking trip to the Pyrenees), the selection process feels difficult. I could go about it chronologically and tell about all the little mishaps, like the inept preparation (who would pack a full tracking backpack and in addition wrap a large bag to hold camera and multiple lenses around the neck?), or the virus infested water at Gavarnie we learned about too late.

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All this is silly, of course. Why should one go hiking in the Pyrenees to begin with? One reason to hike the Haute Randonnée Pyrénéenne we had not in mind was that this trail is transversal to the famous Camino de Santiago, used by pilgrims even today for personal enlightenment. Which brings us to a theme.

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The light in the Pyrenees is special. It combines the mediterranean softness with the clarity of high altitude.

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And there are special places, too, that deserve clarity. Like the Brèche de Roland, where Roland, after losing the battle against the Basques in 788, destroyed his sword Durandal. leaving a 40 meters wide gap in the mountains, part of which can be admired above.

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They all should have done the same with their weapons before the battle.

Sugar Creek

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Sugar Creek is a tributary of Wabash River (which continues into the Ohio River and the Mississippi).
It connects Shades State Park with Turkey Run State Park, and is a highlight of both parks.

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At Shades State Park, most trails touch the creek at some point, or at least provide an unobstructed view across onto a vast wooded slope.

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There are sights that stun instantly, and others that require some time.

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In Turkey Run State Park, (almost) every visitor will cross the suspension bridge and enjoy a view like this:

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Paths (Corsican Landscapes, Part III)

Another landscape paradigm to explore is that of the path. Usually, we plainly think of a path as something that helps us to get from here to there. Sometimes, circumstances can hide the paths, and the signs disappear in the landscape.

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Or the path disappears, because it really does not matter where you walk.

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In other cases, the ever changing surroundings make it necessary to find a new path each time.

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Often, the path is obvious, but there arise doubts about where it leads.

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And finally, Freudian stairs can lead to hidden desires of the mind.

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Corsican Rock Faces

One of my manic disorders forces me to see faces in all kinds of rock formations.

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The varied geological nature of Corsica, together with heavy erosion due to wind and water, provides ample material.

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Sometimes, sunlight helps, too.

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I am sure that today, after more than 20 years, these rocks are better preserved than the negatives I had to deal with. Besides the usual dust and scratches, some of them have deteriorated beyond help. I have stored all of them in proper sleeves and under dry conditions. Still, I noticed large speckled areas on some of them that clearly were not present 20 years ago.

Horizons and Limits

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How does the landscape we live in influence our concept of the beyond? For instance, if our daily view consists of a seemingly endless chain of mountain ridges, do we expect that these mountains will continue indefinitely? Or is there a last one, after which the earth just falls off?

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Islanders are obviously in a special situation. The island Corsica is even more special, because besides the unlimited view into the mediterranean see, it also offers serious mountains that help obstructing the view.

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I visited Corsica in the summer 1992 for two weeks. This was a difficult year of changes and decisions. In retrospect, meditating about the limits imposed by landscapes provides adequate means to examine one’s own limitations.

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Landscape Without Sky

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Of course this landscape has a sky. But everything in Zion National Park is so big that our human field of vision is somehow inappropriate.

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It’s like the romantic landscapes of Caspar David Friedrich about which Heinrich von Kleist wrote that when looking at them, he felt like his eyelids had been cut away.

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After a while, the desire to grab the widest lens in the bag and to take it all in fades. We become aware of a landscapes full of still lives.

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This is in particular true for the eastern part of the park, where most hikes are off trail (and which is much less overcrowded).

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Navigating this terrain is fun, but one needs to be careful. What appears easily accessible can well end in sheer cliffs.

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Also, be sure to pack plenty of water. The trees will thank you for it.

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