This image comes from Old Growth, an ongoing series on fragments of late seral forests in virgin, disturbed, and modified states. In equal measure, the series focuses on ecosystems and infrastructure — trails, elevated platforms, service roads, signage, and the remnants of past use. It also grew to incorporate the subjects of industrial forestry and wildfires to a reluctant degree.
There is an ambiguous quality to plant succession, replacing not just generations of species but species themselves: birches to pines to oaks. When we talk about growth being old, it’s not the age of a stand that makes it so, but the maturity of a cycle — another model we are accustomed to and also suspect. Nature is only cyclical temporarily and in parts.
The site depicted here is a waterlogged transitional zone between the flatwoods and the marshes. The surrounding land, privately owned, carries a history of interventions: drainage ditches, firebreaks, equestrian trails and a poorly marked grave. The food chain being still in recovery, the place is almost entirely unpopulated by birds and mammals. Even the insects are few.
Its clarity is unclear. Disturbance narratives are direct and conclusive, making them entirely unlike land — which, in this particular instance, and if not disturbed any further, will heal, the reciprocity will return, and it will grow to a seral state, serving a flourishing yet-to-come. Such recovery tells us little about nature, or us, as we relate to it. But it will feel like home.
What are the TWO most impactful features that make your image a good photograph? Don’t be shy!
I don’t really think it is a good image.
If you could make this photo again, what would be the ONE thing you would like to do better or different?
It helps to return to places and see them on different days, seasons, and with different kinds of light. I was only able to see this scene twice, I think, and I wish I had spent at least a few days there.
Gleb Simonov shared this photograph with the FRAMES Facebook Group.
Photographer
Gleb Simonov, New York, USA
Equipment and settings
Mamiya 7, 80mm, Portra 400
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