Scrub oak and ferns, mountain laurel and low-bush blueberry. There are some of the defining features of the pine barrens, a low and almost alien landscape spread thin soil and chunks of bedrock at the Eales Preserve.
I shared some recent landscape photos of the Preserve a few days ago, but this is a different perspective. The barrens is challenging for wide landscapes, busy and cluttered with brush amid pockets of forest. In the summer it’s a sea of green, and in the winter a maze of brown.
It’s the details that stand out, and why I often visit the Preserve with a selection of prime lenses, including a macro lens. Fern fronds in autumn, acorn caps on the rock, bits of quartz, and individual leaves all stand out and combine as parts to represent the whole.