Canal

In “The Wood Pile,” Robert Frost describes the “slow smokeless burning of decay,” the moment of repose when power - and, indeed, life itself - ceases. Nature is arguably the most visible locus of destruction and regeneration, decay and rebirth. In this regard, the natural world represents the glowing light within us that burns fiery hot, until the end if days arrives, and it flickers out.

These photographs, which were made along the historic Chesapeake & Ohio Canal between Spring 2025 and Autumn 2026, are autobiographical, markers of my physical decline. Once a competitive runner and cyclist, now I can barely walk. My days of photographing in the city, first in Chicago and now in the District of Columbia, are over, especially as I have lost the mobility to react instantaneously. So I have begun another journey, first captured in Acts of Light, and now in Canal, one that has helped me discover myself and the true meaning of time’s passing.

These quiet and reflective pictures mark my walks along the canal and down its paths to the Potomac River, which courses alongside, like a big brother watching over its younger sibling. I see the foliage and seasonal changes, the plants and flowers, the cyclical periods of leafy emptiness and plenitude. The metamorphic and igneous rock, carved into sculptural beauty by the Potomac, some of which is more than 700 million years old. I see the animals and, especially, the birds that fly in silent harmony across the clouded skies above. The changes in skylight, the hushed stillness of the canal, the pulsing rush of the river. The human presence is apparent, as well, as we are, for better and worse, inhabitants of the natural landscape, which, as these pictures demonstrate, dwarfs us in scale and magnitude. But most of all, I’m captured by the trees, particularly those whose life force has been extinguished, either by time or the hand of man: darkness made visible. In these magnificent woody plants, we can see our fates and the drama contained within, the threads connecting life and death. I know I can picture mine.

I see for Nature no defeat/In one tree’s overthrow

Or for myself in my retreat/for yet another blow

              In the Clearing

              Robert Frost