The Narrative Image

South Falls from the canyon floor I wish I could write poetry about the last warm, sunny days of autumn.  I’d try to explain how, despite the morning’s cold, I’ve worked up a little sweat hiking to the canyon floor, and now, coming to a standstill behind my tripod, I shiver as I wait and watch the Sun’s fingers prod and probe through the trees and mist, slowly — imperceptibly — prying their way into the shrouded canyon. The noon’s warmth is yet just a feeble promise. I am glad to start walking again. South Falls from the canyon rim The sun continues to rise in defiance of the autumn’s measured coup. Where the sun gazes, leaves burst into the colors of wildfire. South Falls (detail) Near the Silver Falls Lodge, a roofed enclosure shelters a small theater where a video loop tells its short story over and over to empty benches. It features a man who captained a canoe over the South Falls in a money making gambit. The camera’s vintage footage shows a close-up o...

The trails that loop around and behind the Silver Falls State Park waterfalls are a kind of compromise between experiencing the beauty of the wilderness and going to something like a waterfall museum. It’s the difference between capturing a glimpse of a wild bear on a hike and studying it in a cage at a zoo. Because there are so many people - so many feet impacting the soil - erosion can easily get out of hand if the masses wander too far from a carefully prescribed path. The solution to destructive environmental impact appears to be a generous contribution of railings and stonework that ultimately shape a kind of habitrail that allows selected viewing of natural spectacles but limits and controls any actual exposure to them. In other words, we’ve long reached a point where we have to ration wilderness, at which point it doesn’t really seem to be wilderness any more. The big “South Waterfall” It’s still kind of pretty though. Waterfall Pilgrimage Obligatory plant close-up Low...