I’ve been thinking about how over the past year it seems we’ve gone back in time. Like really far back.
I spent most of my time within just a few miles of my home. And there are many days I don’t leave at all. But what really struck me was how I now notice the passing of time.
I have found it hard to get good action photos of marmots. Most of the time, they aren’t very active.
The hoary marmots I’ve seen in the Cascade mountain range spend most of the year sleeping. They hibernate for 8 to 9 months each year. They are awake only in summer when they scramble to eat enough to sleep through the next three seasons. Even then, however, I often see them stretched out over large rocks, napping in the sunshine.
Today is the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Since we’re supposed to be spending it at home, I thought I would post about how, honestly, Earth Day begins at home.
There are thousands if not millions of special places and wild creatures that are under attack from one environmental threat or another. And we should do all that we can to protect them. But if we focus only on them, we run the risk of thinking that doing right by the environment is someone else’s problem.
Balsamroot is a member of the sunflower family, so it seemed only appropriate to photograph a hillside of the golden flowers in the first light of day. I also wanted to photograph the wildflowers in a way that illustrated how they can absolutely dominate the landscape for a couple of weeks in the early spring.
My style of photography has always been to capture a "living wilderness." I believe the Earth is as alive as we are. And that means it is dynamic — always changing.
Because our lifespans are so short, it's hard to fathom a time when Mount Rainier wasn't there, when the Hawaiian islands were tiny buds on the bottom of the ocean, when the Grand Canyon was filled. But there are plenty of changes that we can witness.
