Of sunstars and reflections in the woods
NOCATEE PRESERVE TRAIL | 501 Davis Park Road, St. Augustine, FL 32081 | 4.2 Miles one-way trail | MAP
The morning sun shone brightly. Angular sun rays filtered through the trees along the Nocatee Parkway. My original plan was to drive to South Ponte Vedra Beach. A friend had shared a news story of a shrimp boat stranded there, and St. Johns County was raising $35000 to remove it, which would delay its removal. I imagined an old worn-out boat backlit by the rising sun against the unmolested white sand and clear Atlantic Ocean water. I relished the prospect of including a striking foreground object in long-exposure images. I imagined pictures where moving water would turn into a blur, further isolating the stranded fishing trawler. I took the exit on the parkway and headed east.
Bright sun had just risen on this mostly cloudless morning. The sun's angle was such that it created Rembrandt-style lighting. The light was coming down at a thirty-degree angle from the east. It created shadows below the trees and streetlights. Beams of light shimmered against a clear sky, partially obstructed by trees next to the highway. Noticing the light's quality, I decided not to go to the beach. This morning could be a great time to take images in the woods. It was highly probable that I could find bright patches of light amid the darker tones, light rays coming through the trees, and could capture the sun stars. With that in mind, I drove to the Nocatee Preserve Trail.
Where Nocatee – consistently ranked the top master-planned community in the country – is busy, this trail is deserted. That morning, mine was the only car parked in the lot adjacent to the Ponte Vedra High School. The trail entrance has a map on a display board and a rectangular structure of rusting iron bearing the trail's name. Though the sun had risen, the canopy formed by the trees and plentiful underbrush blocked most of its light. Nocatee preserve trail is 4.2 miles long or 8.4-miles roundtrip. This multi-use trail is well maintained. It is bug infested – except November to march. The terrain is mostly flat and makes for a leisurely walk when conditions are right. However, the trail conditions and difficulty of the hike can change considerably after rain.
Solitude, arresting views, verdant landscape, diverse ecology, and varying scenery make the hike well worth the effort despite prevalent bug bites or other less common but serious dangers – cottonmouth water moccasins are common – of crossing the underwater sections. I started my walk carrying my tripod over my left shoulder, Hasselblad, with a 30 mm lens attached slung over my right shoulder and a viewing loop around my neck. I felt uneasy at the start. Unease soon gave way to discomfort as bugs unfurled a red carpet and mobbed me. Unfortunately, I was wearing shorts – remember I was initially driving to the beach – and a short sleeve merino-wool shirt. Fortunately, I had applied copious amounts of insect repellent spray and hoped that the DEET (N, N-diethyl-meta-toluamide) would keep the biting insect at bay.
My goal was to quickly reach the spot, a quarter mile down the trail, where tree cover is less dense, marsh brackish water more frequent, and the underbrush thinner.
It was more likely that I could match the pre-visualized images in my head with the world around me. Images of sun stars and sunrays streaming through the trees and selectively lighting scattered patches of grass, tree trunks, roots, and shrubs.
But I could not walk quickly. Arresting views after arresting views, a feast of textures, shapes, and colors delightfully welcomed me and slowed me down. And what glorious colors! I identified many greens: Verdigris, Absinthe, Emerald, Kelly-Green, Scheel's green, Terre Verte, Avocado, and Celadon. Merely a sliver of nature's magnificent palette. Only the dark of the trees, the warm browns of the dead shrubs, and the intense blue of reflected sky occasionally interrupted the sea of green around me. Even the warm tones of once-standing giants reduced to the fallen trees had become velvety and verdant, covered in moss. Some rested on the ground while others lay in water where even their reflections were mainly green.
The trail surface varied from firm to muddy to occasional spots submerged by up to a foot of water. Dense shade enveloped most early portions of the trail. In the distance, I noticed specks of sunlight, barely breaching the shield of shadows. Ever persevering sunrays were deft in finding chinks in the armor of darkness. There is hope! There will be light!
The rising sun diffusely lit the eastern part of the trail. On this windless day, the marsh water was still. Trees and their appendages of varying tones and textures scattered the light that had just rescued them from the darkness. Brighter the scene, the less menacing it appeared. Light also turned brackish water into transparent reflective surfaces. Reflections of the trees, robust and otherwise, their underbrush, and the surrounding shrubs, created a psychedelic and dizzying display. Sometimes I had to strain to tell the actual and its reflection apart. Had van Gogh come across this view, he would have used his pointillist stippling technique. For those lacking that skill, like I, the pixels of the camera sensor tried and mostly failed to capture the glorious details. It will do. Cameras are far more capable now than ever, even in a cell phone. It will do, it must, I tried to assure myself.
I made technical and aesthetic choices to include select elements in the composition while discarding many; underexposed a few scenes to intensify the color; or overexposed others for more transparent files. After surveying the scene, I either exposed my images to the right of the histogram or the left. I played with the camera angles: plunged the camera stand in the mud or submerged it into a foot or more of water while carefully staying on the edge of the marsh (scared of snakes), stretching to reach the camera controls. I stooped so low for low-angle shots that my camera was millimeters above water or ground. Other times, I stood tall and raised my camera as high as possible to make an image from a different point of view.
I captured a few images I liked; I missed most that I wished I could have captured. None could match the images that I had previsualized with my mind's eye. A few came close. I am immensely grateful for those. I am delighted by the infinite variations in the world around us and within us.
