Every time I hike into Hocking Hills with a camera, I’m reminded how much this place thrives on subtlety. It’s not just the waterfalls — though Upper Falls and Cedar Falls are always stunning — it’s the quiet textures: wet stone, layered bark, filtered light through hemlocks. And when I shoot in black and white, those subtleties come alive.

Why do we photograph trees? Why is it that many photographers love to use trees as photographic subjects? It makes you contemplate whether trees, like humans, have souls. Each individual tree is unique in many ways, even within species. Much like we humans, they possess their own shapes, beauty, faults, and their own life cycles.

“What is he looking at,” asked a casual observer? During a recent photography outing to the Hocking Hills area in southern Ohio, I was approached by another photographer at one location who introduced himself and his partner. I recall they mentioned they organized photo adventures for groups. They were curious about me because as they noticed me working, they thought I must clearly be seeing or looking for different subject matter than they were.