Nature Photography Archives -

It’s Not a Box-Check Life

By Simone Lipscomb | October 1, 2020

Last night I was talking on the phone with my mother and telling her about going back to Cataloochee Valley this morning to visit the elk. She asked me why in the world I would want to keep going back after seeing them once or twice. As I drove through dense fog in the darkness before dawn this morning, I thought about her question.

Why do I return to see the elk? Or have in-water encounters with humpback whales…three weeks over three different years? Or visit favorite dive destinations over and over again?

As I pondered her question it was like…why do I breathe? Just because I did it once…

First, to share breathing space with a massive bull elk or a sweet baby, still sporting spots in its shaggy fur or be close to a huge cow elk peacefully munching grass reminds me I am part of the whole, not the alpha or the better or wiser. I am part of Oneness. And secondly…it’s just so freaking amazing! To feel…yes, feel!… the eerie bugle call of bull elks echoing through the valley is one of the coolest things ever. And thirdly…how could I possibly get tired of the continuing saga of which bull will keep what cows and who will challenge who and will I get to witness their meeting? Or will that once-in-a-lifetime encounter yield an image that will touch people’s hearts?

The first time I was in the water with a massive humpback whale I wasn’t sure how I would feel because they are wild and huge and I’m a speck compared to them. What I felt was communion, like coming home to myself. My heart opened and my entire being melted into bliss. And it happened every single time, every single year. I even meditated with humpbacks in the water and did yoga under stars while whales surrounded the boat but, that’s for another post. How could I possibly find that boring? Or ho-hum? No matter how many times I did it? When something touches my heart it opens me to a great sense of life…of being alive!

Even the walks at Deep Creek, a part of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, never feel boring and I walk there three or four times a week. There’s water flowing everywhere, trees, wildflowers, hummingbirds, butterflies, bears, snakes, rocks, rocks and more rocks and waterfalls and trails varying in difficulty from easy to challenging. When I walk in Nature I walk into a living Universe and I always experience these walks with wonder and awe.

As I was walking from the far end of Cataloochee Valley today, loaded down with camera backpack and tripod, I realized I can never be happy working inside for very long. The thought of a full-time, indoor job crushes my joy. As my hiking boots splashed through a creek, through mud and lush grass I had the realization that to honor myself I needed to spend time each day outdoors. It wasn’t a new realization at all but after several days of working indoors, at a part-time job, it was a good reminder.

I’m not ‘me’ in an office. I am most myself when the wind plays with my hair, the frost crunches underfoot, I’m nose-to-nose with a spotted dolphin or fluke to finger with a humpback whale, or when I have my telephoto lens filled with a massive bull elk bugling his powerful voice throughout the valley. Or the dawn shows me how lovely it is to be quiet and observe the mountains enshrouded with fog.

When I open myself to Nature I am at home in my skin; I feel a deep sense of place. For every wild animal that has honored me by allowing me to commune with it, photograph it and write about it…Thank you! You enrich my life with every encounter.

I’m not the kind of person that has a list of things to do in my life and once done move to the next thing. I live my life listening to wild creatures and places that call to my wild heart and will do my best to show up when I hear the call…no matter how many times they whisper my name.

The Sound…

By Simone Lipscomb | September 28, 2020

The sound of water flowing over rocks was the first thing I noticed as I opened the door. Before I put my foot on the wet pavement the wonderful sound ahhhhhhhhhhhhhgreeted me and began to unwind me from the inside out.

It had been nearly two weeks since I walked at this water-place, this sacred place. The things that kept me away from this flow seemed important. I had been working election setup in my county, working in my yard, going to Asheville to walk at Biltmore gardens, attending online yoga teacher training…all great things but I was starting to become tight and felt my body gripping and unhappy to be boxed in.

As I walked I wondered…is the water making the sound as it contacts the friction of the rock or is this the sound of rocks laughing as water tickles them as it rushes down, down, down.

Walking nearly every day at a place it’s easy to allow the sounds to blend into a background hum but when we are absent and return those things that stand out to new visitors greet us again and we are re-aquainted with their wonder.

In this area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park the sound of water is never far away. In fact, you have to really work hard to find a place where there isn’t some sound of water….rushing, roaring, dripping, tinkling, booming.

As the trail moved away from the creek…all the crescendos and percussion and the ahhhhhhhhsound of water faded a bit and then there was birdsong. Birds were awaking from slumber and sweetly welcoming the day with singing and insects of the night still vibrated and sang under the dense cloud cover and mist. All these sounds touched some part of my being and created an invitation to relax.

When I lived in coastal Alabama I had a front porch that was my yoga practice space. At night I would go outside and sit in the darkness and listen. Chirps, drones, peeps of tree frogs, pond frogs and toads vibrated the space along with crickets, cicadas, grasshoppers and katydids. The chorus would immediately put me in an altered state of calm and stillness. During my nightly sessions I heard an inner voice remind me that these sounds help balance humans and when we cut ourselves off from the sounds of nature we become out of whack–off center, off balance.

Finally, after the vibrations and sounds helped unwind that inner spring, I noticed I was smiling. It wasn’t a smile simply on my face but my heart was smiling and every cell of my body was smiling. To be in this rich symphony of nature sounds is healing.

The sound of water rushing over rocks….purveyor of bliss.

Sea Turtle Magic

By Simone Lipscomb | July 3, 2017

The first dive was amazing. We were winding through the coral caves of Palencar Reef. Sponges and corals were pristine. The arches, alive with color, were surrounded by blue…ocean blue…the color that seems to run through my veins

As I was meandering through exquisite passageways I thought it was most likely the most beautiful dive I’ve ever done. Over 600 dives in magnificent caves of the Yucatan, reefs of the Caribbean, the Pacific kelp forests….none were as deeply beautiful as this colorful swim through winding tunnels of reef.

The surface interval was relaxed and fun and then the second dive….”Duck in a canyon to get out of the current,” he said. It was Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride with current that wasn’t bashful. But that’s not what I remember so much. It’s the three hawksbill sea turtles that were casually munching along the top of the reef….where the current was ripping.

The first one had two friends greedily watching for tiny creatures uprooted with the amazingly strong foraging jaws of the turtle. In order to stop and take video and photographs I had to touch the sand….and thankfully with gentle kicking I was able to stay within inches of the huge turtle and capture the best video of my life. Not to mention the absolute thrill of being within inches of the strong jaws of the turtle….who completely ignored me.

The gray angelfish kept blocking the camera, swishing their tails against my mask and hands. What a problem to have…right? Photobombing fish.

The third hawksbill was massive in size. When I swung around to face the current the turtle walked on the bottom just beneath me. I could sense the sea turtle’s energy even though we never touched. My belly hovered just inches above her massive back as she munched on a sponge.

Hours later I still feel it, the strength and fortitude this being has. To survive from a golf-ball sized egg to this size took wits, strength and perhaps a lot of luck. But I’m the one that feels lucky….so amazingly lucky.

After spending five years as a sea turtle volunteer working mostly with unhatched nests and hatchlings as they crawl to water, this was a special treat. And while I’ve had nice encounters with sea turtles while diving, none have come close to any of the three connections I had today.

My mask was inches from the back of the largest turtle and the colors and details of the plates on the shell were incredible. The spotted skin of the head and flippers was brilliant and the eyes looked at me with unconcern…which made me so happy. I was an accepted part of their world, not something to be feared.

Most of what I experienced was visceral and so I reach for words that don’t seem to be there. Somehow I came away feeling the strength of these sea turtles had been shared and my bones now know a little bit more about what being a sea turtle is all about and I carry a little more of their magic in my heart.

Long Meg and Her Daughters

By Simone Lipscomb | November 26, 2016

We had directions from Keswick to the stone circle and a road atlas but I found myself pulling into a small auto repair shop in the middle of beautiful English countryside to ask directions. The SAT NAV system was no help at all and wasn’t like SIRI who will at least apologize for not being able to find something.

I asked the delivery guy leaving if he knew of the circle and he said he wasn’t local, to ask inside. The roll-up door was open and a gentleman was spray painting a car bright green. He didn’t hear me over the compressor motor. Finally I got his attention.

“Excuse me, do you know directions to Long Meg?” I asked.

“Oh, sure. You’re really close. You just passed the turn. Go back, take a right. Go across the next crossroad, then make a right and stay on the dirt road. Take a right at the fence and just keep going. You can’t miss her.”

Having been used to the SAT NAV who reminded me at every turn, I asked to hear the directions again and then repeated them to him and then thanked him and flashed my most genuine smile and did a little bow with hands over heart.

It didn’t sound that complicated but there were no signs pointing the way, nothing to suggest there was a historic stone circle anywhere around…except the red lettering on the atlas page near Penrith. I drove down the small, one-lane road onto the smaller, one-lane dirt road and glanced at sheep and cattle near the fences. Hmmm…..

A very large tractor was coming and I had to pull over and stop and the driver of the tractor did the same but was able to pull onto the shoulder and create a larger space. I waved and then stopped beside him and hopped out.

“Is Long Meg nearby?” I asked.

“Oh, yes love. The stone circle is just up the road. But she’s not in today. She’s gone shopping,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes.

I laughed and thanked him and continued driving on the farm road. That’s the best way I can describe it. In a few minutes we pulled under a very large tree and parked. The road went right through the circle.

Long Meg and Her Daughters has one of the largest diameters of any stone circle in the U.K. At 300 feet long, it’s quite impossible to photograph the entire circle at once.

Walking around the circle was challenging. Not so much from the size of it but from the number of piles of slippery sheep and cattle poo. Evidently, they loved the circle of ancient stones.

I felt immediate joy and laughter at this circle. It had a very different energy than Castlerigg. I walked up the slight hill to Long Meg and stood beside her. She seemed to emit the sound of women singing. When I stood in the vast space at circle’s center, I still ‘heard’ women singing and felt laughter and joy vibrating around me.

After about half an hour, a small school bus pulled up and several children emerged with two adults. They had on colorful stocking hats which caused the world to waver a bit. Just two days before, after visiting Castlerigg and having a very powerful experience there, I had drifted off to sleep with a vision of children running and playing in brightly colored hats among standing stones. Here was the exact scene manifested in physical reality.

I paid very close attention to their energy since they embodied a vision. They walked around the circle in pairs counting the stones. Then their teacher gathered them around Long Meg as I knelt among the cow paddies and began talking about the circle, teaching them the known history. How amazing to be a child and grow up among ancient stone circles over 5000 years old. That must add to their human experience a great deal.

After listening, I wandered away to take more photographs. The sun finally decided to show up after four days of gray skies. I had been struggling with gray light for days. To have warm, sunny light to work with made me incredibly happy.

It was very cold and windy and even the sun’s appearance didn’t keep me from wanting to retreat to a warm coffee shop. We decided to try Ed’s route, a scenic drive near Grasmere after leaving Long Meg. But that’s another story for another day.

Sweet is the Light

By Simone Lipscomb | May 8, 2016

On this Mother’s Day I am especially grateful to loggerhead sea turtle mothers who give me incentive to awaken before dawn, drive to the beach and walk along the Gulf just before, during and after sunrise. It gives me opportunities to photograph pure, rich color.

There are a very few moments in which to capture the richest, most precious light. Between the pre-dawn gray and post-dawn white there is a sweetness where color bursts forth from the water, earth and sky and everything the sacred sunrise kisses. The muted, soft pastels are transformed momentarily into rich colors of incredible depth. Then the harshness of daylight washes them into a faded expression of what they once were reminding me of the impermanence of life.

Ambitious architects from the day before provided a perfect surface for the perfect light to illuminate and I arrived at their castle at the perfect moment, when the light was at its richest. Some times things work out exactly as you would hope.

There were no sea turtle tracks on the section of beach I patrol but that’s only part of the reason I volunteer. I go for the sunrise because sweet is the light.