N 36° 5’2.73″ W 79° 8’27.55″ Google Earth Location
Today’s image comes from the banks of the Eno River, not too far away from where I used to live, a secluded little creekside area that I would visit from time to time. To get this image, I had to be sprawled flat on my stomach on a rock on the banks, with my legs extended far enough into the water behind me that my shorts got wet. But that was what was required to get this perspective on those wonderful roots and moss, that likely appear this way through a combination of streamside erosion and questing for more water on a rocky substrate. To the best of my knowledge, the tree is an American sycamore (Platanus occideltalis,) but I learned how to identify that species long after I was visiting the locale, though it wouldn’t take a whole lot to return.
Part of the reason I like this is that it puts me in mind of the cover of JRR Tolkien’s The Two Towers, or at least the edition that I read in my teenage years – there have been at least dozens of covers of that book over the decades, but the one that I have in mind can be seen here, the second edition. I believe the cover art was done by Tolkien himself, but I haven’t been able to confirm that.
The underlying (heh!) point within this post, however, is that interesting perspectives and compositions can be found anywhere, with a little effort and consideration – the roots definitely looked cool by themselves, but it took the low angle to give them the drama. And just now, out of curiosity, I did the channel-clipping thing and took just the green channel, then tweaked contrast higher in the upper ranges of the brightness curve for an even moodier greyscale version, perhaps a little more Ent-like now.
