Like typical Michigan weather, after introducing us to Winter fairly early in December of last year, we had a sudden warm-up this week, where all the snow melted, and the ground started thawing just enough to create some very muddy dogs. I suppose the very warm Arctic decided to ride the jet stream down to us. And so, yesterday was very foggy at first light.
That provided a photo opportunity right out our back door. I’ve made a similar composition after a sticky snowfall in 2023, near the end of January—the simple graphic nature of the bare trees caught my eye then—but there are so many lines that you need some kind of visual simplifier/harmonizer. Snow largely obscured the background trees then; now, the fog lets them through only partially, with subdued contrast. I snapped a quick photo with my iPhone, and I liked it enough to go back in for the “real” camera. I am also writing this post on the heels of attending a webinar by the Aldo Leopold Foundation featuring guest speaker John Muir Laws, titled “Nature Journaling: How to Reclaim Your Attention & Sense of Place.“
For the most part, I journal through photographs of what I notice, but I don’t always take notes in the moment. JML (aka Jack) also spoke about the cognitive science behind cementing memories, how much of it depends on the depth of our undistracted attention to any particular moment, and how our brains record them for later recall. With our attention being a limited resource large corporations compete for (and manipulate) in today’s technology-driven world, it’s on the individual to fight fire with fire and take more deliberate than passive action.
That means, in addition to reducing or eliminating distractions, he suggests a bit more active engagement with whatever has your attention through a series of structured prompts that help cement a memory. The three prompt suggestions are simple and easy to remember. While these were suggested in the context of writing a natural journal filled with numbers, words, and drawings, I also saw their application to photographs and to how I think about and communicate about them. Those prompts are:
- I Notice …
- I Wonder …
- It Reminds Me Of …
Last year was a pretty tough year for me, if measured by photography (and blog) output, which made it especially hard to put together a post of favorites for the year, which I have yet to finish. While any photo technically takes only a fraction of a second for the initial exposure, photographers generally devote much more attention to the entire development process. Such prompts might help extract some purposes that are not always obvious to anyone other than me (and sometimes not even then!!). There are no rules about how much depth each one should have, so I figured I’d keep it pretty open-ended and simple.
I Notice…
I noticed the fog, obviously, when letting our dogs out first thing in the morning. It can dramatically alter the familiar, being our backyard. I also noticed the lines of the River Birch (Betula nigra) tree trunks in our yard set against the trunks of trees in the floodplain forest behind us. It’s a composition I’ve used before because it eliminates other distractions of living in suburbia, as well as creates a visual connection between our property and the surrounding woodlands.
I Wonder…
I wondered… whether the fog provided enough separation between the foreground and background trunks, or if it would be too busy. Is fog a visual metaphor for the need for fewer distractions to our attention? Just as we respond more favorably to simplicity in landscapes, do our brains naturally crave them because they require less concentration?
It Reminds Me Of…
How this view has changed over the years. The birch trees (native to Michigan) were planted in 2016 to replace a few declining blue spruce trees that our home’s previous owners had planted in abundance, but they also provided much greater seclusion from surrounding suburbia. The changing climate and increasingly erratic precipitation and temperature patterns have really done a number on the health and resilience of spruce trees in Michigan.1 Even being present in the moment can bring to mind how the world is changing before our eyes and our own backyards.
- Kelly House, “Under current climate trends, Michigan’s Up North forests could be doomed“, Great Lakes Now/Bridge Michigan, Aug 2022. ↩︎
Beautiful image to start your year! I’ve journaled for years with both a camera and a journal. I read of different ways for prompts in journaling and use some of them. I like the idea of these prompts for photographs. Wrote them in my journal!!
Thank you Monte. I consider you the journaling master! I suppose the prompts are now official!
Love the image, Mark. I consider my blogging a journaling of sorts. Yet, it will disappear as soon as I drop Squarespace and I’ve yet to gather the gumption to collect them in to printed form.
That sucks – no export I take it. Maybe an AI can gather them all together for you as cringy as that may sound.
Feel a bit the same about the blog, except I end up overthinking it or it seems too involved but it will also disappear someday wben I stop
paying hosting fees. So just trying simple notes in my phone and have a calendar
to write on.
I do a lot of copy-paste into notes so as to save interesting quotes or ideas. Occasionally they turn into blog posts. And, actually, I never checked for a blog export feature. Thanks!
I really enjoy the photo. I’ve been doing a bit of journaling as well and have discovered that even though I think I know the answer to a prompt I end up finding and thinking of more possibilities when I’m actually responding by writing.
I have to establish a habit of doing it first, so I’ve been using the Keep it Simple Stupid philosophy. Ha. You are right, it does serve as a bit of a launchpad, but I keep my expectations low. Thanks Howard.
Good photo start for 2026, and the color palette adds a little extra to the presentation. I like those three prompts and intend to use them. I think they’ll be helpful. For some reason (duh), motivation and engagement are hit-or-miss these days.
Yea, know the feeling. Look forward to how you use the prompts (which sounds weird given how AI type prompts are what seem to dominate the use of that term these days) – but not completely different I guess – maybe “anthroprompt” will avoid confusion. Ha!