Black Brook, Hockomock Swamp, South Easton, Massachusetts. Good Photos from 2009.

Photographing the Hockomock Swamp is not easy for many obvious reasons (bugs, water, not easy to get into), but more because it is so hard to find a shot which defines it. It's not like a mountain or a river where you can press the shutter button and people can say, "yup, that's a mountain." Taking a picture of a 6,000 acre swamp is like taking a picture of one of your skin cells and calling it a self portrait.

Like a rainforest or climax temperate forest, a forested swamp like the Hockomock is a study in verticals. Change doesn't happen horizontally, it occurs vertically. This shot, from July 18, 2009, next to Black Brook where it crosses the old railroad grade on the Easton/Raynham line, starts to capture some of the feelings, glints and shadings of the multitude the Hockomock contains when you are inside it. It also shows all of the growth layers in the swamp, from the leaf litter underwater, to the sphagnum moss underwater, to the aquatic plants growing in hummocks next to the water, to the shub vegetation and finally to the crown branches of the swamp red maples 50 feet above.

Click on the photo to embiggen it.