Project Overview
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Brief Project Description
I don’t know if this really qualifies as a “Project”, but it seemed a good place to see how it fit. I have begun sharing photos in a gallery of images and writing a story that begins with some version of “I Went for a Walk in the Woods”. I’d like to know how yo think this plays on social media and if the story is too long. The photos are in the order in which they “appear” in my story. Let me know what you think!
I went for a rainy walk in the woods Sunday morning. The temperature was in the low 40’s and the rain fell steadily for the entirety of the walk. My primary goal was to check on the progress of the Calypso Orchids that can be found here. I hadn’t walked more than a hundred yards before I started finding them sprinkled all along the forest floor. I found one perfect specimen standing proud in the shadowed protection of a decaying fallen tree.
Now a more steps down the trail and I thought I saw a white flower I had never seen. After stepping closer to inspect, I realized it was a fungus. Subsequent research tells me it was a rhizomorphic mycelium, which is a root-like network of fungal threads.
I have been followed by Coyotes on this trail, and its also bear country, mostly black but its within the known range of Grizzly bears, so while glancing side to side for flowers, I also looked ahead and behind me as I walked. I was approaching a Y in the trail where I know there to be a tiny forest on a large fallen log. I have tried and failed to photograph it adequately in the past and was hoping to do it justice today. Right across the trail from these tiny trees, was a patch of Globeflowers, practically glowing in the rainy gloom.
This is where I started hearing Pikas on the large talus field below towering cliffs. It’s also where I noticed the fantastic way the fog was revealing and concealing the landscape in a most compelling way. I started up to a point to get a better perspective and was immediately distracted by another Calypso Orchid, growing right out of yet another decaying tree.
I captured a portrait and a close up of this beautiful specimen. I bring an umbrella with me on trips like this, because the focus stacking method I use requires plants that aren’t moving and the rain had this little one dancing. Then, I kept moving to get to an open viewpoint of the mountains in the fog. As I captured a few images there, I heard Pikas again, this time much closer. I sat down on a clump of mossy soil and waited to see how close they might come. I got a few images of a rain soaked Pika as it went back and forth between the rock pile and some vegetation growing through the rocks fairly close to my view point.
It was such a great day for a walk and I was thrilled with all the little treasures that revealed themselves to me.
Creative Direction
I think people like to feel as if they are with me as I walk in the woods. Through the story and the images that align with what they read, I hope to take the viewer along with me. I am considering a coffee table style book of my photos with the stories I write and wonder how this type of format might work. I’d do multiple sets…single walks like this. Maybe a few sunrise to sunset, then a Milky Way to finish it off. Probably will need to through a few sets of wildflower portraits in there too. Do.you think this format would “read well”?
Self-Critique
Given the short attention span of most folks on social media, I fear the story is too long. I do think many like to read something relaxing, but others will often comment TLDR, which I had to look up the first time I saw it! In a book, maybe they could read a set of images at a time. It could be broken up into the equivalent of chapters that way, but would be easy to pick up and set down at any point.
Feedback Requested
Should the story be all in one place like this, or broken up into text that matches the image.
Presentation Goal
Book Publication