The old man turned off the country road and into the parking lot, gravel crunching under the tires of his mostly pale-blue sedan, a car his grandfather bought brand new almost 80 years ago, now showing its age in dents and chipped paint.
It had been a rough few days: lots of bad news, some political, some personal. Sleep had been fitful. Although the doctor had warned against taking them too often, his bottle of anxiety medication was running low.
Read MoreMemory fails me; it does not seem like it has been that long. But, if my photo history is an accurate representation, I have not been to Campbell’s Covered Bridge since 2017. That was the year I found out I had an aggressive form of prostate cancer, which led to many anxious days and weeks, and eventually to an operation to remove my prostate. The recovery time extended considerably because of a couple of incisions that did not heal properly. For a long time after that I just was not in the mood for hiking and photography. In 2018 and 2019 I went from around 100 hiking trips per year to about ½ dozen per year. And then along came the Covid-19 scare.
The parks shut down. I stayed home.
Read MoreIt had been a while since I visited Campbell’s Covered Bridge. By this point, I had taken dozens, perhaps hundreds, photos of the bridge and the surrounding area. I was beginning to think that all compositional possibilities had been exhausted.
Read Morea red plastic chair
on metal legs
waiting there alone
by a cool emerald stream
It was late spring or early summer of 2013, one of my first visits to Campbell’s Covered Bridge near Landrum, South Carolina. On a beautiful blue-sky day with a few wispy clouds, the sun had just begun to peek over the tree-lined hill behind me, dappled light caressing my subject.
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