Winter Walk

I treated myself to a walk in the woods with my camera yesterday. It has been awhile which is a shame since it is something I really enjoy doing. I don’t know why but making artists dates is a thing I have a terrible time doing, logically I understand that filling the well is absolutely necessary yet I still find myself extremely resistant to doing it on a consistent basis. Just another thing to work on I guess
Anyhow it was a snappy bright winter day and I’ve been wanting to try to take some pictures of winter textures so I cleaned out the camera and headed out into the woods behind my home.
I enjoy many of the aspects of the winter landscape such as the lines of tree branches and the delicate colors of lichens, branches and bark. I don’t agree that the woods become colorless and uninteresting in the winter. On the contrary I find the stark qualities are really fascinating, it becomes possible to see the personalities of trees and I enjoy the interweaving of branches in thickets. For the most part it was very enjoyable here are some of the pictures I took:
Pine Bark

Branches
ThicketsLeaves Lichen What I didn’t enjoy was seeing the damage that is being caused by ATVs.
This path didn't exist 2 years ago

I have nothing good to say about ATVs or the people who drive them, and I’m a mountain biker! I get the desire to be out in the mud. I have just never seen anyone use one of those things responsibly they are massively destructive and effortless to use which creates a situation where wanton destruction is easily distributed everywhere and deeply impacts the environment. So my Artists Date was 1/2 good and 1/2 bad, the woods were wonderful but I don’t know how long it will last if they continue to be treated this way.