Boardwalk Through the Trees

In the Woods

An elevated boardwalk winds through the trees at the William B. Clark State Natural Area near Rossville, Tennessee.

As you may remember, we visited this natural area not all that far from our home with my parents back in July. The previously posted photo had a view of the side of the boardwalk, so here is a view looking at the boardwalk itself.

I was interested to see all of the leaves on the boardwalk. It almost looked like fall was approaching because of all the leaves that were down. However, this was right in the middle of summer. A quick check of how green the leaves are on the background can confirm this.

My guess is that because there are so many trees around, dead leaves are inevitable. Trees probably lose a few leaves here and there all of the time. But you don’t notice it all that much when there are just a few trees. However, when there are hundreds and hundreds of trees, those few lost leaves start to add up.

My other guess is that because the leaves are so thick on the trees, the lower leaves don’t get the sunlight that they need to survive, so they just give up and fall off. That is in some ways related to the first guess up above, too.

As you can probably tell, I am no tree expert. So I probably shouldn’t talk about things that I don’t know anything about and just say that I really enjoyed this view.

Interrupting Nature

When I look at this photo, one of the things that I think about is how this boardwalk really does not belong in this photo. It is not a part of nature, but it was instead added by people.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not one of those that necessarily says that we should leave nature alone. Because if we left nature alone, where would we live? We have to be somewhere, right?

I think back to when we built our house. Before we built it, the land where we now live was just a big, open field. That field was full of all sorts of critters: mice, snakes, deer, skunks, possums, hawks, and all other sorts of birds. But then we came and built a house there, making ourselves at home. Even after all these years, it is still sometimes a challenge to keep some of those critters out of our home, because they think, perhaps rightfully so, that the area should still be their home.

So I wonder what the animal residents of the swamp thought when the boardwalk was built through it. And I wondered if they were still there and tried to hide when we walked through.

In Genesis, God created the animals and then man. And he gave man dominion over all the animals. But the animals are still God’s creation as well. We all share the earth together.

But I will still try to make sure the animals stay outside of our house.

Bible Verse

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” - Genesis 1:27-28

About the Photo

As with the previous photo from this area, it was starting to get dark out when I took this. So I already had the aperture open as wide as it would go. However, that was to my advantage, as I also wanted the effect of depth of field that the open aperture would provide. So even if it had not been getting dark, I still would have used the same aperture setting, except with a lower setting than ISO 1600.

When I processed this one, I did lighten it up a good bit, so that you almost can’t tell that it was getting dark. I also increased the saturation somewhat. I used a bit of Orton effect to make the scene look a little more dreamlike, too. Because it almost does look like something out of a dream.

Photo: A single Raw exposure, processed in Aurora HDR. Read more about photography tips, photo software, camera gear, and more at Steve’s Photography Tips.
Camera: Sony Alpha A7 II
Lens: Sony FE 28-70mm f/3.5-5.6 OSS Lens
Date: July 27, 2019
Location: William B. Clark State Natural Area, Rossville, Tennessee