"What a thousand acres of Silphiums looked like when they tickled the bellies of the buffalo is a question never again to be answered, and perhaps not even asked." -Aldo Leopold
“We love to see any redness in the vegetation of the temperate zone. It is the color of colors. This plant speaks to our blood. It asks a bright sun on it to make it show to best advantage, and it must be seen at this season of the year.”
-Henry David Thoreau-
While growing up in the inner St. Louis suburbs, I have relatively few memories of nature before entering my twenties. One memory that particularly stands out is on a trip south seeing an Osage orange fruit for the first time. Just what the heck was this strange fruit, so reminiscent of the cerebral cortex of the human brain? Like so many ignorant of nature, I wondered what its purpose was and why it had to be so creepy.
Thirty years later I realized I still did not know much about this tree. Sarah found this fruit on our trip through the Ozarks and I brought it back to make it the subject of this study. The common name, “Osage orange” is rather self explanatory. The name Osage comes from the Osage tribe that was historically found over much of Missouri and the fruit does resemble an orange, so commonly eaten. I have since learned that the best adaptive story to explain such a large amount of flesh covering the hidden nut is that the primary disperser of these seeds were the Mastadons. Following the disappearance of these large herbivores, humans became the primary dispersers of this species, planting these trees as windbreaks and fences. The wood of these trees is some of the heaviest, densest and hardest in the Ozarks. This fact plus the thorns on young branches made this the perfect species for such purposes.
The nature of this species wood also made them perfect for use in making bows by native Americans. This fact prompted the French to name them “Bois d’Arc” or bowwood. This name is the most favored in being responsible for the name “Ozarks” given to the hills and habitats of Missouri, Arkansas and surrounding states. It is theorized that Bois d’Arc was bastardized to “Bodark”, and later to Ozarks by English settlers. To my understanding, this cannot be proven, but is the best conjecture given by historians. That is why I titled this post “The Ozark Tree”.
So, I brought this fruit home and took it out in the backyard and placed it among colorful white-oak leaves, a milkweed pod, Monarda seed heads, and a prairie dock leaf. It is still siting in my backyard. I want to see, if left alone to rot over winter, whether or not the seeds will germinate.
Did you know…?
-The first nest of the Le Conte’s Sparrow was was not discovered until almost 100 years after the bird was first described by science.
“Le Conte’s Sparrow”
“”In short, they who have not attended particularly to this subject are but little aware to what an extent quadrupeds and birds are employed, especially in the fall, in collecting, and so disseminating and planting, the seeds of trees.”
-Henry David Thoreau-
“Golden-crowned Kinglet”
“I do not see what the Puritans did at this season, when the Maples blaze out in scarlet. They certainly could not have worshiped in groves then. Perhaps that is what they built meeting-houses and fenced them round with horse-sheds for.”
-Henry David Thoreau-
Ansel Adams and some of his cohorts fought an epic battle in the first half of the 20th century against pictorialism – the manipulation of pure, sharp photographs with other artistic objectives. Pictorialists often produced images that were deliberately lacking in sharpness, low DoF, were hand-painted or toned with various pigments, all in order to place more of an artistic interpretation to the relatively cold and literal technological tools that photography introduced. Although most of the greats of this period, Adams and Steichen, Weston and Cunningham, began as Pictorialists, by the end of their respective careers these folks had shunned this practice and those that persisted to its employ. The literal interpretive of negative to positive in the photographic process was considered to be the only truly valid option of the photographic artist. Certain protocol were acceptable – using darkroom tools to manipulate emphasis in tones of the final print, for example. But, other than focusing on composition and obtaining as much DoF and overall sharpness as possible, the photographer became shackled in the tools that were “acceptable” to being taken seriously as an artist.
This is pretty much true today. Sure photography has been and to this day is still used in other types of art – using photos in mixed-media, pop culture works for instance. But the modernist view of photography is still the dominant and expected form. Any manipulation in making the exposure “in the camera” is acceptable, but other than the digital manipulation that is analogous to the darkroom of old, you are not allowed to interfere with risk of being completely shunned. For as long as I have been involved in serious photography I have wholeheartedly agreed with this. We have all seen the effects of plug-in filters in “Photoshop” and how tacky and cliched they become. I have looked through images like these on Flickr and thought those thoughts exactly. Until recently. The latest Photoshop, “CS6” has a new and improved “oil paint” filter. I have experimented with it a bit lately and I must say, it is growing on me. I think it does a great job of mimicking a real oil-painting.
The “photographer” is given six sliders to manipulate their painting/photo: four for the “brush”: stylization, cleanliness, scale and bristle detail, and two for “lighting”: angular direction and shine. With these sliders the artist can manipulate the “canvas” almost as much as one of those snobby old people with an easel who insist in sitting right where you’d prefer to set up your tripod. Just kidding! The majority of painters I’ve come across have been quite friendly and eager to talk nature with me. My point is that you have a lot of options in how the final output can look like.
What I feel I like best about doing this to a photograph can be observed in the two images above. In both of these un-manipulated photos the bush was nearly too chaotic, although each had pleasing colors, shapes and form. It made the composition messy. Putting some brush strokes on top of this took a bite out of all that detail and presented, may I say – order? from the brush of the “composer”.
One of the most characteristic plants of the St. Francois Mountain region of the Missouri Ozarks, these trees are easily identified by their unique bark. If I were patient enough to paint, I know that bark would be my favorite thing to represent in this composition. The oil paint filter adds a bit of texture to the empty, white negative space. I feel this images is improved by this treatment as well.
I love that this technique can be used to emphasize texture and pattern, something that could be difficult to do in a traditional modern photograph. I can easily see an image like one of these printed on canvas. Would you be able to tell the difference? I’m not saying that all photos should be presented like this. It would be easy to overdo and I can see this one becoming cliche’ like the emboss or watercolor filters that have been in PS for years. I do think there is something interesting going on. Painters have been using photography, to greater or lesser degree, to help their art work for decades. In some of these cases the only difference in output is that the person lays down oils on top of projections. Here, the computer does the same thing in a shorter time.
“When you come to observe faithfully the changes of each humblest plant, you find that each has, sooner or later, its peculiar autumnal tint; and if you undertake to make a complete list of the bright tints, it will be nearly as long as a catalogue of the plants in your vicinity.”
-Henry David Thoreau-
“When the leaves fall, the whole earth is a cemetery pleasant to walk in. I love to wander and muse over them in their graves. Here are no lying nor vain epitaphs.”
-Henry David Thoreau-
During my fall break I finally visited Crane Lake for a hike on a beautiful autumn morning. There was not a cloud in the sky and the colors were really popping. The hike was just perfect and I had several interesting wildlife encounters, including watching a Bald Eagle nearby along the shore as soon as I left my car. The primary tree in this image is the short-leaf pine, the only native pine of the Missouri Ozarks and definitely a characteristic species of the St. Francois Mountains.
Following the winter that never was of 2011/2012 came one of the hottest and driest summers on record in the Ozarks. Of course the autumn would be some sort of disappointment, right? Boy was I pleasantly surprised! Sarah and I have taken an October vacation, exploring the Ozarks, looking for color for about four years straight. Even if our trip coincided with “peak color”, more often than not that peak wasn’t necessarily anything to jump up and down about. Well, this year was nearly everything I dreamed an Ozark autumn should be.
Every tree tried on it’s best outfit a couple of weeks ago. The black gum and dogwood were draped in their dark warm shades of reds and violet. The maples were a schism of warm tones – sometimes on separate trees, sometimes with contrasting leaves on the same tree, and often with a mix on the same individual leaf! My personal autumn favorite, the grand sycamore was gloriously showcased in yellows, burnt umber and mild reds that set off so nicely it’s bright, ivory bark. Hickories, normally easily forgotten as the dull yellow leaves drop so quickly, were an incandescent display of quintessential amber. Even the usually boring – white oak wasn’t going into its winter nap without a show, bringing out a variety of mild warm tones before dropping brown to become part of next year’s forest floor. As usual, the small sumac and sassafras brought their best to stop you in your tracks.
This was darn-near too much! Driving hundreds of miles and putting tens of miles on the trails I wanted to stop every five minutes and find a composition. There was the problem. Everywhere I looked was a potential composition, but actually putting something together was often a tremendous difficulty! I now truly understand the concept of chaos in the biological world. There were periods of frustration as I realized I wasn’t going to be able fulfill my desire to nail all the potential autumn shots that I dreamed about. As I begin delving into and processing the several hundred images I took that magical week, I can only hope I nailed a few images. Over the next several weeks I hope to post a lot images here with some info or story behind it. Hopefully not all of the photos will be the typical cliche’. Geez, are there any autumn photos that aren’t?
A Thousand Acres of Silphiums 