Letter Photography - S is for Spiky
Since May 2015 we have been travelling around South Africa for a photo project we hope to share with you very soon. This brought us to the Garden Route in January. We camped in Nature’s Valley and Swartvlei, we hiked both the beginning and the end of the Otter hiking trail, we hung out with some bigfeet in Knysna, and eventually we made it all the way to one of my favourite corners of our country: Knysna Forest. The night before we arrived there, heavy rains fell, which meant we couldn’t visit Jubilee Creek, so we drove around for a while, enjoyed a picnic brunch and set off for a walk in the forest.
This particular walk, the shorter of the Circles in the Forest routes, started out beautifully enough, albeit without much photo opportunities. However, soon we found much inspiration in the ferns and before long were happily snapping away too many shots of only about three ferns. This is the last fern we documented, and if it wasn’t for that-man’s keen eye, we would never have brought this gem of a photo home with us.
It seems as if it hails from somewhere further away, some much more exotic place than the Garden Route. It is only a small beginning of a fern leaf, but how intricately designed. How much metamorphosis still lies ahead for this little leaf – from ‘n tightly wound spiral to a fragile “S” to a young, bright leaf, a deep forest green mature leaf, and eventually back to the dust from which it came. The wonder at how similar it is to our human lives has stayed with me since that day. May it be a reminder that the days of my life has been measured and are passing by, one by one.
Other articles in this series include:
