Top 200 Photos: #43

A walk along a path for this Top 200 Photo

photo #43 is:

Danielle gets very restless being stuck at home all the time. Since Maryland isn’t like NYC where you can just go walk around the city, Danielle has ended up gaining an appreciation for nature. Over the last six years she’s gone from someone who’d grimace at the mention of a hike to the person most responsible for getting me out of the house on the weekend.

Last August she decided she wanted to explore Patapsco Valley State Park. It’s a very large park with various entrances and trails. With the entrance we chose, there was just one main trail (with some smaller trails branching off). I took this photo near the mid-point of the trail (I think). In a some ways, I’m surprised this photo has 808 views (at the time of this writing) because it has elements of two classic photos. One is the path extending out into infinity and the other is the completely enclosed forest. The funny thing is that every time I see either type of photo my first thought is how cliche they are. But my second thought is almost always how much I love the shot. Is there something subconscious that is represented by the path? Why does it appear in so much visual art? And what of the forests? I don’t know if it goes back to the early days of humanity where we needed forests for our nutritional needs or if it’s just a general longing for a more natural world, but I’m hard-pressed to see a well-composed forest shot that I don’t like.

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