Today's photos:
I did make it back to Schertz today to walk more of the trail at Crescent Bend Nature Park. Today's photos are from the upland area where the Lakeview Subdivision housing was located until the flood of 1998.
All of the other nature parks in Bexar County are either floodplain land that has never been developed or land that was previously ranch and farm land. Crescent Bend is unique in that it is land that was formerly a subdivision that is being returned to its natural state.
As I mentioned in my post Monday, the asphalt streets complete with street signs and some utility lines remain. I'm not sure why these have been left, but the street signs impress me as historical markers that give the park a specific context. In a sense, it has the feeling of being a ghost town without buildings.
Photographically, this was a very productive walk. I have several series of photos from this morning that I will be posting on upcoming Tuesdays and Thursdays.
As I explained in yesterday's post, the photos I am posting today are from my return walk from the Oakwell Trailhead back to the Tobin Trailhead primarily along the dirt trails close to the Salado Creek bed:
Even without having seen a topographic map, it is evident from walking the trail that there is enough of a slope in the Salado Creek bed from the Loop 410 bridge to about three-quarters of a mile downstream to keep any water in that section of the creek flowing when water is present. The creek levels off from there at least to the Eisenhauer St bridge. The creek bed is level enough for pools of water to remain after it stops flowing.
And there currently are pools remaining from the rain about two weeks ago. This explains the unexpectedly lush underbrush in this section of the Greenway in spite of the drought.
Note: The Oakwell Trailhead parking is currently inaccessible due to construction on Ira Lee. However, the drinking fountain and restroom facility (a.k.a. glorified porta-potties the City is now using in many parks) are accessible to people on the trail. Ira Lee isn't blocked until the bottom of the hill off of Austin Highway. They really should move the barricade up to the intersection.
Today's photos:
As the title suggests, this is the first of a two part series of photos from my walk this morning. I will post part 2 tomorrow evening.
Since I couldn't access the Oakwell Trailhead parking, I started my walk at the Robert Tobin Park Trailhead and walked south on the asphalt trail to the Oakwell Trailhead, a distance of about 1.5 miles. I then returned to the Tobin Trailhead most of the way along the dirt trails that are closer to the creek bed. These trails are similar to the dirt trails along Mud Creek in McAllister Park.
I walked from these trailheads back in mid-May, but only covered half the distance on each of those walks that I covered today in a single walk. My stamina has improved considerably in the past ten weeks.
The trees and underbrush are holding up under the drought conditions much better than I anticipated. As a matter of fact, the underbrush became more dense and lush the further south I walked. I will illustrate and explain the reason for that in tomorrow's post.
The photos may be a bit deceiving in one respect. It's freakin' hot even in the morning. When I checked the Accuweather app on my phone at one point, the actual temperature was something like 94 degrees with a heat index of 106. If you are considering going for a walk at any time of day, be sure to begin hydrating, drinking a lot of water several hours before walking and carry water with you.
In case you haven't noticed, digital technology in general, not just digital photography, is altering the way we perceive and interpret reality.
Pedro Meyer, digital photography pioneer and educator, discusses this topic in his editorials on his excellent website, ZoneZero.com. Fred Richtin, the longtime photo editor at the New York Times and now director of PixelPress.org and Associate Professor of photography and communications at the Tisch School of the Arts, NYU, also discusses the topic in great detail in his book, After Photography, and on his blog of the same name.
Richtin uses the apt analogy comparing the changes digital technology has initiated to the changes that occurred as a result of the change from horse drawn vehicles to vehicles propelled by the internal combustion engine. It is virtually impossible to fully predict the consequences of the new technology.
It has been possible to manipulate and alter photographs ever since its invention in the early 19th Century, but digital technique using algorithms to alter the image data has expanded the range of possibilities.
My background in photography is in documentary and photojournalism. Both closely related genres rely on optical realism. I have never had much more than a passing curiosity for my own work in the creative possibilities of image manipulation.
I am fascinated, however, with the questions and issues that digital technique have brought to the forefront. For example: Is there a point in altering an optically realistic photograph where it ceases to be a "photograph" and becomes a computer generated image? Or another: What are the interpretive implications of a digitally abstracted photograph?
In terms of objective internal content, an optically realistic photograph is very specific:
In this photograph, it is this red-eared slider turtle (not a snapping turtle) sunning itself on this limestone rock (not on a granite rock or on a log) with this algae growing on the rock (not a bare rock) in this water (not on the river bank) at this specific time of day (mid-day judging from the position of the shadows). All of that enters into the interpretation of the photograph.
But a digital abstraction of this same photograph using the "Find Edges" filter in Adobe Photoshop alters most of the information available in the original optically realistic version:
It's the same "photograph." It is still recognizably a turtle. But the interpretation of this altered version is much more ambiguous. The viewer must now rely on external context (any information associated with the image, but external to the image) and on the viewer's own experience in order to create an interpretation.
Here are some more images created using the "Find Edges" filter from previously published photographs in the San Antonio River series of posts:
