The moment I saw the photos at 1430 Contemporary Fine Art last week I knew the landscape, even though Devon Oder photographed areas a thousand miles from my own. In both places they are the ones we alter into crags where there once was a forest.

The small railroad that primarily services the lumber mills to our east has been working to clear their right of way of trees for the past two years. After cutting, they haul the trees back up to a clearing —more a staging area — presumably to be chipped and shipped, although the pile just gets longer and longer. You will see in the first photo that some enterprising folks have availed themselves of some of the protruding trees for firewood. In that the majority of the pile consists of deciduous hardwoods, (the firs were hauled away to the mill), this in itself is not a bad idea. And while there undoubtedly is much more wood that could be harvested, the pile is well over twenty feet tall, and too much enthusiasm could very well result in severe injury.

I have photographed this pile from time to time, and believe I have mentioned it here at some point. Pretty remarkable in its size last year, it has now doubled and I am working on a way to document that immensity. An initial attempt at videotaping it as I walked along failed to stay in focus, no doubt due to a technical oversight on my part. I did, however, manage some stills that I brought home and played with in PhotoShop. Again, not surprisingly similar to Ms. Oder's work.