The Artful Engineer

This past spring I spent 8 weeks living in Madison, Alabama. Early in our stay, we discovered the Bradford Creek Greenway, and it became our favored walking spot. My Lightroom catalog has images from eighteen different dates, and I am sure there were a few other times when I either didn’t have my camera or didn’t take any pictures. I never took a lot of photos on any given walk—the average was about 15—but because those walks started when all the trees were leafless and dormant and finished when they were bursting with green, not to mention covering everything from daylight to twilight and sunlight to cloudy, there is an enormous variation across my collection. The only place in my experience that I visited so many times is Tumamoc Hill in Tucson, Arizona (covered in my 1001 Tumamoc Nights post).

The two images above and below illustrate some of the variation of light. The image above is sunny and cheery, which perfectly sets the mood for the rope swing waiting for laughing children, whereas the image below has more of a moody, lost-in-the-woods-and-it’s-getting-dark feeling. Each image has an interesting detail: above it is the rope swing and below it is the unusual bowed trunk that is (fortuitously) sidelit by the late sun.

This next image is a different lighting again, taken on an overcast day where the light is soft and everything is bathed in a soft green glow. The smooth water adds to the overall feeling of quiet peacefulness. (I do have other images when this creek is a muddy, raging torrent, too.)

The next image was taken on a day where there was enough breeze to keep the surface of the creek dancing. The ring of ripples anchors what would otherwise be an impressionistic abstract. I really enjoy this image.

Below is another favorite that features a narrow (and beautiful) color palette and a central area that contrasts strongly with the rest. I won’t give away its secrets other than confirming that it is indeed a single exposure; feel free to comment about what exactly you think is going on here.

I will finish up with an image that is very different from the rest. The vibrant green contrasts so nicely with the murky, almost sludgy, brown water. The contrast is not just about color, either: the plant has very sharp lines whereas the water, other than a few floating bits, is full of soft, vague shapes.

I hope you enjoyed this assortment of images from one of our favorite spots. I will be back a few more times this year, but don’t expect to hit peak fall color, which I think would really round out my collection. (Huntsville only gets two days, on average, of snow each year, and very rarely more than a little bit, so I don’t think I will bother to hope for that!)

I think next week we will leave Alabama and switch topics. In June I was fortunate enough to spend a week photographing in the Yorkshire Dales, England, and there is a lot to be shared from that trip.