A UVM blog NR9 Wonderblog – Christian Wall

Entry #3 – Photography

By chwall

July 6, 2021. Humid / 80 degrees / partly sunny.

For the most part, the swamp looks the same. We have had a lot of rain, wind, and thunderstorms as of late so there are a lot more sticks and twigs lying all over the ground that broke off the trees and blew around. The little pond, that was pretty much dry last time I was here, has some still water in it. Mostly this just came from the rain I assume but it makes the place look a little better rather than a big old patch of wet mud. Perhaps this is just the difference between the time of day and sunlight through the trees but there looks to be a lot more growth than I saw last time. Again this is probably jut attributed to viewing the marsh at a different time of day than last time so the sunlight hits it differently. It’s pretty crowded and dense down there so when I go to take some photos today I will be wearing my boots.

When I went down to the swamp today I found an old newspaper from September 29, 1996! I was really not expecting to find something like that. It was all yellow and it was a full sheet almost fully intact. Unfortunately it was just ads so there was no story I could read but it was cool anyway. I know this object isn’t part of the natural landscape but it was definitely worth mentioning. Why would I just randomly find this object lying right on top of the dirt? I have been back there so many times in my life and this was the first time that I found a newspaper and one from 1996 as well is pretty cool. Also since it is on private property in a weird spot I know for sure nobody else goes back there. At least not regularly.

This is an image from where I enter this small wooded area. I chose it to set the scene as if you were just starting your walk around of the area. There is a neighbors fence on the left out of the photo and the swampy area is just down the hill to the right.

This is an image of the weird plants I had mentioned in my first blog post. They stand about a foot off the ground and their leaves cover a large area like a rainforest canopy but just below the leaves are just green stems.

This is a great image up close of the little swampy pond. I wanted to make the water the center piece of the shot. I wanted to show the mud (which my boots are now covered in) and I wanted to show the large rock on the right. Just to give a sense of understanding, the place where I took this photo is about 30 yards away from the entrance.

This is another photo of the pond. Looking at the photo, the big rock from the previous photo is just out of frame on the left. I wanted to make the centerpiece the reflection of the sky and the trees above in the pond. I think this is the coolest shot I took. There’s a bunch of elements. Also the water here is about 6 inches to a foot deep at the deepest spot.

Here is a photo of that old newspaper I was looking at. If you look carefully you can see the date on the top right, closest to the middle.

As I took these photos it made me realize how many “randoms” are just lying around in the woodsy area I chose. “Randoms” are all the sticks and rocks and random stuff that lie around on the ground. There’s also some beer bottles and trash as well that I think come from the neighbors parties just over the fence. I never looked at this site in depth like this before. I have always just used it for manhunt with my buddies or airsoft gun fights. I like looking at it from a nature perspective like I have been for the past 2 weeks now. It gives me a better appreciation of the land that we use for fun and how our activities affect it.

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