If you enjoyed my post about wood on the Colorado River back on July 18th you are REALLY going to enjoy this one…I think. The trees in Oregon were amazing. They had such stories to tell. Here is just a sampling. There were WAY too many great ones to share them all here.

There was a lot of this going on, bent over trees where one side looks like it exploded and the other side is just calm, normal…tree.

There was the occasional window. The lines and textures around this hole kept me occupied for a while. It was much more visually pleasing to look at this than the smoke-filled lake in the crater.

And then the faces…you see it, Right? Two eyes, a long snout…for me it brings life to the forest. Life to things that are no longer living I guess.  Dead wood with more character and stories than the living.

Some of the lines in the wood reminded me of the flow of water. And I LOVE water. Especially moving water. These lines here look like a meandering river with eddies and everything.

The roots on this tree caught my attention. It looks like it got tired of being in the same place and decided to uproot and just walk away.

Again with the faces.

This was happening on a lot of the trees in this area; bulging sections of the trunk.

I kept seeing black feathery stuff on the ground. It looked synthetic, man-made. I couldn’t come up with what could possibly be being littered all over my us humans. Then I looked up. Wow. It’s some kind of fungus on the trees! Right next to the bright green moss.

This tree was fun to shoot. They call them Ghost Trees. People actually buy them and “plant” them in their yards in Central Oregon. It looks like its lower tentacle has grabbed something and is holding it in its curled up hand.

This is another tree that had tremendous image potential. Tons of line, form, color and texture to keep one busy for hours.

I was impressed with these wooden poles. They are all along the roadway at the higher elevations of Crater Lake National Park. They are roadway markers for the deep snows this area receives in winter. 400+ inches a year. Let that sink in. This snow is, in part, what helps to keep the lake at consistent levels. It’s a closed lake so it evaporates and seeps and is only replenished with rain water and snowmelt.

Go to a National Park and challenge yourself to shoot something beyond the iconic park images. Find the details, they can be fascinating.

Happy shooting!