Failure at Devil's Den
Devil’s Den is one of my favorite nearby areas in New Hampshire to visit, and was a local gem I had learned of over ten years ago from the book Weird New Hampshire. Since I am a caver, the short thirty-foot cave is what initially drew me to the area. Though not a cave in the traditional sense of having formed in limestone or marble, this short cave draws people to the hill it is formed in. But, today the cave was not the prize I had in mind. Today’s goal was to shoot a dead tree that lurks near a pond’s edge that I had spotted on an earlier warm day a couple weeks ago.
Sometimes it is really hard to get up the motivation to wake up at the sphincter of dawn, knowing that you are going to have to drive some distance, and then hike some more to your location. Especially so when you are having difficulties sleeping, going through some emotional distress and confusion, and you’re just an insomniac to begin with. The alarm was originally set for 3:15A, but by 1:30A I shut it off and told myself, “the only thing that matters is good light, it doesn’t have to be sunrise”.
4:30A cracked hard, I got up, loaded up the car and grabbed some Dunkies and made the almost hour drive to the start of the ATV trail that takes off from Merrymeeting Lake. I had this vision in my head: calm water with warm morning light shining on the tree, and capturing the reflection on the water’s surface. What I discovered however, was anything but. In addition to gusting winds, it was 45F. But, as a photographer, you work hard for your images.
It was shortly after I arrived that I realized that none of this was going to come together as planned, but I still set up my tripod for my initial composition anyway, and maybe a six stop ND filter would smooth out the water and give an ethereal dreamy quality to the water as it rippled past the tree. However, of all the pieces that I had forgotten to throw into my kit last night, was the ND filter! Disappointment was palpable, and after the hike, I was assaulted by the wind as it surged through the narrow gap between the knolls where the pond sits. Trying to find some respite from the wind, I walked into a nearby copse of hemlocks on the pond’s shore, and that’s when I spied a secondary, and perhaps potential composition. I relocated the tripod to this more secluded spot, found that this composition was much better, and I was sheltered from the wind - all I had to do was wait for the light to arrive. However, I soon realized that this last part of the ever changing equation was not going to come. I checked PhotoPills to see when the arc of the sun would be just right…and it wouldn’t be optimal for another seven hours. As had become the theme for the end of April and the beginning of May…defeat.
But, all was not lost. Photography for me is therapy. I am very much in my own head much of the time. But, I find that when I am focused on the camera, on the image in front of me, that distraction; taking in the scene, calculating when to take the shot, how it is composed, sometimes getting so excited about the moment of capturing the image where you laugh out loud about that ecstasy and stepping through that threshold of time (that liminal space); this is a form of active meditation, where all of the chatter of thoughts and doubt of the typical day (especially here in this time of COVID and the past couple weeks), can get pushed into the background. I did walk away with an image (definitely not spectacular, but I am of the opinion that it is just as important to show your failures as well as your successes) to put into my mental scrapbook, but more importantly I now know when the light comes, and have a better understanding of how to compose the image. And, a equivalent of a 5k hike is also not nothing.