I’ve hiked more than my share of wilderness trails on my way to high and wild places. I have spent many nights sleeping on the ground in a nylon sack filled with feathers, my stash of barely edible freeze-dried backpacker food hung by a rope from the branches of a high tree to keep my Mountain Chili away from the neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Bear.
I have gone to those wild places with many intentions, some I’m aware of, others probably not. I have hiked to find peace and quiet, to get away from the noise and hubbub of the city and modern life. Because I’m a photographer I’ve also carried camera gear on my back, hoping to find amazing images, but I know that even the best pictures sometimes don't communicate the essence of a place.
I can tell you from experience that John Muir had it right when he said: “In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.”
This week we’ve been planted in front of our television set every evening, watching the latest Ken Burns film on PBS, “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.” For the past four nights we’ve heard about folks who had the vision to keep a few special wild places wild, to spare them from mining or drilling or damming or development.
Ironically it was just a week ago that we were visiting friends in Gaithersburg, Maryland and I stumbled into a question of land use. One afternoon I went out for a walk in our friends’ suburban Washington DC neighborhood. At every turn I saw yard signs protesting a development that Johns Hopkins University has proposed for the area, and I learned later that my walk was giving me a look at the kind of pro- and anti-development controversy that has been the backstory of our local, regional and national decisions about how to treat our lands. A 108-acre, 19th century farmstead would be developed into a massive biotech campus, 4.6 million square feet stacked in 6- 10- and 10-story high-rises.
I walked outside a white fence surrounding most of the perimeter of the farm, and it took nearly an hour. Beltway suburbia was outside the fence, trees and fields, a big barn and old home within. I took a few pictures.
I had the sad feeling I was photographing land that will soon be lost to “progress.”
