Last week, I shared the story of a beautiful morning moment that I experienced on my deck before I went to work. Fog in the meadow, toads and peepers singing in the mist and birds joyously declaring their intentions into the magical hour before sunrise with an exuberance that could not be dampened by the humidity, or the threat of imminent rain.
This week, I am going to continue the story of that very same morning, just to show how the tables can turn on you when you least expect it. This is not a sad story, but I have to admit that it was not the proudest moment that I have ever experienced. It was, however, a prime example of how the mystery and romance of being a nature photographer is often bolstered by the accentuation of victory and the omission of less-than-perfect outcomes.
I was now in my car and on my way to work. Sitting on the passenger seat was my beloved Nikon and I had made sure to bring it with me because I wanted to take a special photo for this week’s column. By now you’ve seen this photo, so I hope that you enjoy it.
I was in search of the marsh marigold (Caltha palustris), a gorgeous wildflower of spring wetlands where the ground is saturated. More often than not, I find these flowers blooming in areas that would best be described as “swamps;” areas that are wet or flooded for a substantial part of the year, but that also support the growth of trees. In our area, the tree species most strongly associated with swamps is the red maple (Accer rubrum). In the spring, the swamps can be ablaze with the exquisite yellow blossoms of marsh marigolds, while in the fall the same areas are ablaze with the bright reds, oranges and yellows of the maples.
I had been monitoring a patch of marigold plants for a couple weeks, and I knew that they were in the fullest glory of their blooming. I also thought that the soft light of a foggy, rainy morning would highlight the beauty of these flowers, while also avoiding the harsher contrasts that afflict photos that are taken on sunny days. This, I thought, was a genius-level idea.
Familiar with the location of the flowers, I was able to pull over to the side of the road in a very advantageous spot. My car was completely off the road, so there would be no worry that I was a traffic hazard. I had a raincoat on, because of the spitting rain that had just started, and I walked down the road toward the swampy spot full of flowers. One or two cars passed me, but other than that it was quiet.
Finding the flowers in full bloom, I stopped to take a wide-angle photo of the entire scene and this is where I ran into my first bit of trouble. The morning was so gloomy that there simply wasn’t enough light to get a good, clear photo. I had neglected to bring a tripod, so the slight jiggling associated with a handheld photo was enough to ruin everything. I needed another plan.
So I hopped over the guardrail and looked for a place where I could easily walk down the steep slope to the flowers waiting below. Finding just the spot I was looking for, I took one, two, three steps and then — whoosh — my feet went flying out from under me. I would have explained to my physics students that I had suddenly encountered a coefficient of friction that was so small that there was nothing for my shoes to grab on to. No scientific explanation was needed, however. I was by myself and, in that excruciating slow-motion movement of any disaster, I simply said, “I-D-I-O-T!”
But years of playing hockey as a kid had prepared me for minimizing the impacts of falling. I arched my back quickly so I would hit the ground as soon as possible and I was wearing a raincoat, so I wasn’t going to get dirty. For a moment, I thought I had escaped, but then gravity took over again. I had not fallen perpendicular to the hill, so the next thing that happened was a demoralizing roll.
All I did was roll from my back to my knees, but we must remember that marsh marigolds grow in swamps. As a result, my knees sank 3-4 inches into the wet ground. I stood up and looked around quickly and was delighted to find that there had been no witnesses to this debacle. On the bright side, I was now right down with the flowers that I was trying to photograph. On the not-so-bright side, I was on my way to work … covered in mud.
Fortunately, we are in a COVID crisis and children are not allowed to enter school early. I arrived well before anyone else in my department, I locked all of the doors in my room, I took off my trousers and stood at the sink with a scrub brush trying to erase the evidence of my harrowing experience. In the end, it did a good enough job that no one noticed anything out of the ordinary.
So the next time you see a gorgeous nature photo in a magazine, on the internet, or even in this column, pause to reflect on the notion that each of those photos may have a story behind them and a price that was paid to capture them. It is a price that I pay happily, but I also enjoy the anonymity of paying in private.
Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 23 years. He has worked for the National Park Service, the US Forest Service, The Nature Conservancy and the Massachusetts State Parks and currently teaches high school biology and physics. Visit www.speakingofnature.com for more information (including his email address), or head over to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.