"To take a photograph is to align the head, the eye and the heart. It's a way of life." Henri Cartier-Bresson
I want to see the natural trail the way Helen Levitt or Henri Cartier-Bresson saw the urban avenues of New York and Paris. I never look for a landscape or still-life. To me, every photo is a portrait trying to capture the character and characters of the neighborhood. When I am traveling, buildings and statues get this treatment. Last summer I shot Yosemite's Half Dome in the same last-light as I once took wedding portraits.
As a post-professional photographer, I don't want to be an elitist, especially while hiking. A leaf or lizard has as much nobility as an endangered pitcher plant or a bull elephant. And a backyard trail has as much wonder as Mt. Kenya or Machu Picchu. An 8oz river stone is as solid as a 5000ft massif.
I try to treat these characters with the same respect as I try to treat people—adults, children, friends, strangers. I have met presidents, prime ministers, princesses and billionaires and I try to honor them best with the same respect I feel this dried oak leaf beside me.
But we were speaking of characters. As I thought about this, sitting in the streamside shade peeling a Satsuma before heading back down Colby Canyon, a true character came up the trail. Much younger than I, his canvas rucksack was looking exactly like a Norman Rockwell Boys' Life cover from almost a century ago. His woolen trousers were tucked into his leather boots and wrapped with cotton gaiters.
"Is this the right trail?" he asked me.
I rolled the rind into my Cliff Bar wrapper and tucked it into my nylon lumbar pack. It wasn't the right question. But the answer was obvious.
"Yes," I said, and started down the path.
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