Forest Shots & Research
My story needs an old growth forest as the setting of a large portion of the scenes. In the area I have the story set up in the forested area claiming old growth. Due to local the trees would need to be Sugar Maple and Beech (the only thing in the area that has maintained that old.) So I spent the weekend trucking about the 246 Acres of old growth Beech and Sugar Maple at the Hueston Woods. The area is a protected nature preserve.
Some choice shots from the trip follow:
I started off at the lake. It’s huge. This is a simple shot across the water. I’m either using a river or a lake in one of the scenes – haven’t decided which yet. I need water. River has the advantage of claiming a bit of danger in its movement but I’m more drawn to lakes. Especially this one.
Just a nice shot of the morning sun. Dawn’s a key part of the story and we got there early enough to see it.
In an old growth forest the way the logs rot beneath the trees is actually very important. Without it and the constant change from old to young to old, the forest wouldn’t be considered ‘old growth’.
Grafitti on an old tree – more on that later. What drew me to this particular piece though was this:
No idea what someone meant it to be but there’s a great image in my head of some of the old trees in my forest being scarred in the fertility symbols for my gods and Lila inspecting them. Possibly Lila and Mallory younger carving things into the trees and getting in trouble for it also.
The way a Sugar Maple and Beech forest looks gazing through it. Bars and cages come to mind for me, but also height, depth, and nostalgia.
And the view up. This hit lace, spiderwebs, and skeleton leaves in my mind.
The size of these trees. See that tiiiiny person? That’s the spouse, polietly letting me measure – and I still didn’t quite get the tippy top branches. In a lot of forests the trees get fat, ours get tall. Very very very tall.
this really bothers me. Every old tree, every big one was covered in this stuff all through the forest. These are ancient trees that have stood while their others fell and they’re covered. On the trail we hiked, a couple mile loop, we counted 46 trees covered in graffiti including the Brown’s scores for the last 15 years. Why? Why come to a nature preserve and destroy things like this? They’re like scars from torture.
Anyway – we also saw wild turkeys, geese, and quite a lot of sap harvester buckets.
Bonus shot:
My creative process, complete with help.
alright, I’m going to work on some scenes and post Mal’s character sheet tomorrow so it can be compared to Lila’s.
Kyralae said,
March 11, 2009 at 10:01 am
Hello there, I’m one of your fellow HtTS students. Interesting pictures of the old growth hardwood forest. I live in an area that is old growth but it is all softwood – pines, firs, Redwoods. I would love to see the contrast of the woods in summer and full leaf versus the winter shots you took.
It’s a hard decision between lake and river. Where I live, rivers are whitewater thrillers enjoyed by most of the locals and a lot of people come here from around the world to play on the water. In the same note, we have a lot of lakes that can turn in an hour from a serene lapping calmness to a white capped froth with a wind driven current that can swamp boats and even be a challenge to swim in. Either one could work in a story and create tension. I guess it would depend on how you want the suspense presented.
I love your writing helper. I have one about that size and age and she’s pretty adamant when I need to take a break and pay attention to her. Stealing my pen is a sure fire way to get me to stop for her.
Great work, keep it coming.
driftsmoke said,
March 14, 2009 at 7:49 pm
I loved your pictures. The two that caught my eye were the first picture with the posts sticking out of the water. Sometimes old stuff in water fascinates me. It makes me wonder what was there. The second one that caught my eye was the one where you said the graffiti reminded you of forest gods. Perhaps that drawing could be a ritual or a murder or a ceremony. It’s very intense. It’ll stay with me a while.
By the way, that looks like a beautiful place. The trees are so tall. Around her, the timber gets harvested. Most of it is not tall.