Rot

It’s not uncommon, walking in the woods, to come upon felled logs that have been left to decay. Sometimes they’ve been the victim of storms, sometimes of human intervention. If you wait long enough, they’ll ease their way back into the soil from which they grew. Depending on the size of the tree, this can take quite some time. And while they’re busy rotting, they become home for myriad insects and small slimy things upon which much of life more or less depends.

That’s one of the reasons my attention is drawn to these logs. But there’s another that, for me, is even more important and interesting: They are often beautiful and evocative.

This one is from Hemlock Hill in the Arboretum. There’s so much going on, much of it not visually associated with rotting logs. I love the sense of movement and the contrasting tones and the range of colors, less dramatic than some of my images. I like the subtlety.