
Nikon Z8 with Nikkor Z 24-120mm f/4 Sย at 30.5 mm, 1/1500 sec, f/4, ISO 500.

Nikon Z8 with Nikkor Z 24-120mm f/4 Sย at 39 mm, 8 sec, f/11, ISO 64.
Five weeks can make a difference. All of a sudden you say, “Wow. It’s green.”
All of the images this week are taken along the Beaver Dam Boardwalk in the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, an irregularly-shaped reserve that straddles the Tennessee River and some of its swampy tributaries. I have visited this trail three times since my stay in Alabama began. I didn’t intend to duplicate the above composition, but the tree is so striking that I always notice it and this framing comes naturally to me, it seems. I really enjoy places like this that have nice elevated boardwalksโespecially in swampy areasโbut they do restrict your freedom of movement. For every picture I made, there were ten where my view was too obscured by things in the foreground that I couldn’t figure out how to avoid.
I suppose this is another practical use case for the drone I don’t want.

Nikon Z8 with Nikkor Z 24-120mm f/4 Sย at 56 mm, 1/180 sec, f/9.5, ISO 500.
Most of the interesting trees here are tupelos, which have flared bases not unlike some cedar trees in swampy areas. Some of them, as in this next image, have some moss growing on their bases which gives a bit of color to the image. When the trees are bare, it is easier for some direct light to reach the trees, too, which gives them some shape. I like the view through the shallow water that adds a little orangish color, too.

Nikon Z8 with Nikkor Z 24-120mm f/4 Sย at 52 mm, 1/1500 sec, f/4, ISO 500.
On my latest visit, I brought along my tripodโsomething I wish I had done on my first visitโwhich allowed me to focus stack multiple frames. The air must have been incredibly still because I was able to do this with fourteen separate 3-second exposures and not have any weird movement artifacts around the leaves. Pulling this off in a forest really adds a lot of depth and immersion to the scene. Photographing in these areas reminds me of my trip to Vancouver Island with Alister Benn and Adam Gibbs last year, where the scenes are just so busy that it can really be a challenge to find a nice composition. In the image below, the unusual tree in the center stands out enough from the crowd to provide a point of focus for the eye despite having some leaves in front of it.

Nikon Z8 with Nikkor Z 24-120mm f/4 Sย at 52 mm, 3 sec, f/9.5, ISO 64.
14-frame focus merge.
The next two images have a similar compositionโam I getting predictable?โbut are not of the same tree. On this first one I like the moss, but the vein-like vines on the trunk are striking and manage to stand out from the chaos. The fact that the main tree is so much larger than the others in the frame helps, too. Wide crops like this often work well in forests, but has the added benefit here of limiting the amount of potentially-distracting bright sky along the top edge. The primary photographic benefit of the muddy area in the lower right is that it keeps the area free of brush.

Nikon Z8 with Nikkor Z 24-120mm f/4 Sย at 33.5 mm, 1/500 sec, f/4, ISO 500.
Five weeks later, the forest has a completely different feel, with everything completely covered in leaves. It is still early spring in this image, so the forest has a bright feel to it because the leaves have not completely filled out and still have the fresh yellow-green of new growth. I imagine that later in the summer, everything would still be lush, but with a much darker feel.

Nikon Z8 with Nikkor Z 24-120mm f/4 Sย at 30 mm, 1.0 sec, f/9.5, ISO 64.
I should be back in Alabama a few times over the rest of the year, but unfortunately I don’t think that one of those times will include fall color, which I think would be amazing in this area. And it would be nice to add an autumn version of the two images paired at the top of this post; they would make a nice triptych.
I hope you enjoyed this week’s images!
4 responses to “Spring Comes to the Swamp”
I like the before/after or, more precisely, before/later concept. Colours in Hiding from Elephants are appealing, and I find the leaves in Dance of the Tupelo dance WITH the tree!
Thank you, Rob! I agree that the orangish-brown colors are niceโI wish I had a few more images that featured them. And I’m still surprised that the curved dark tree hollow is enough to carry the subject in Dance of the Tupelo. I’m glad you liked them!
I see autocorrect got the better of me with “Elephants”!
Indeed! I figured that it would be fun to sneak in a little Lord of the Rings reference!