Crowley’s Ridge State Park

A couple of weeks ago, my wife, dog, and I spent a few days at Crowley’s Ridge State Park in northeast Arkansas.  Built by the Civilian Conservation Corps, the park was established in 1937.  It sits atop Crowley’s Ridge and is located on the homesite of the late pioneer Benjamin Crowley.  At 291 acres, the park is one of the smaller parks in the state park system.  It is one of the state’s more popular parks, but the three nights we stayed there, it felt as if we had the entire area to ourselves, and it was great.

If there is one thing I have learned from past trips like this, though, is that photography is, at best, very difficult.  My goal on these trips is to photograph, but my wife’s and dog’s goal is not photography.  As a result of these contradictory goals, I often feel rushed to get an image, which leads to my feeling very frustrated.  So, I decided to take a different approach for this trip.  I, of course, took my camera gear, but photography was going to be a secondary consideration.  If I got some images, great;  if not, that would be fine, too.

We arrived about mid-afternoon the first day, unloaded everything, then hopped back into the car to drive into town to pick up some groceries.  When we returned, I fired up the grill and began grilling up some hamburgers and hotdogs for the week.  As I waited for the fire to die down, I noticed a leaf lying on the ground.  What caught my eye was the stripes of yellow and brown that reminded me of a tiger’s stripes.

A couple of hours later, the three of us went for a short walk down the road where I spotted this amazing Autumn scene.  I didn’t have my gear with me, so we walked quickly back to our cabin so I could grab my equipment.  By this point, it was getting dark, and the light was fading rapidly.  Returning to the location, I hurriedly framed up this composition.

We took another walk the next day when I noticed this scene.  When most people think of Autumn, they think of the peak of the season when the leaves have exploded in color.  But, over the last few years, I have begun to appreciate the more transitional period of Autumn where the leaves are beginning to change but haven’t fully done so.  During this time, everything feels more subtle, more peaceful, and that feeling is exactly what this scene signifies to me.  And, peaceful was exactly how this trip turned out to be.