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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/500 sec, f/11, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Mountain Fern
I've been crazy busy lately with my Lightroom plugins, a transpacific flight (complicated by a back that went out 10 minutes before leaving for the airport :-(), visiting with family, and fending off jetlag. Posts will likely be sparse for a while.
It's been a while since I posted anything from the Uji mountain trips I made a couple of months ago. (The first trip produced a bunch of posts starting with “Exquisite Beauty Growing Like a Weed by the Side of the Road”; the second trip's posts started with “Pleasant Little Village in Uji”.)
On that second trip, after leaving Ice-Cream Girl, while winding our way up through some uninhabited mountain roads, near a pass I briefly noticed a flash of railing disappearing into the woods. Curious, I backed up.
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/1000 sec, f/4.5, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Railing Disappearing To the Left
It seemed quite out of place, so I had to investigate...
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/800 sec, f/2.8, ISO 280 — map & image data — nearby photos
Looks Inviting!
The stairs disappeared up into the overgrowth, and were covered with a thick spongy layer of moss...
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/800 sec, f/4, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Destination Unknown
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/500 sec, f/4, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Thick
Halfway up there was a small landing, then another flight that added a bed of dried pine needles over the moss...
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/800 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Like a Layer of Frosting
on top of a layer of frosting
At the top, there was nothing of interest. Absolutely nothing.
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/800 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1400 — map & image data — nearby photos
at the top:
Nondescript Woods
I'd guess that all the trees were less than 20 or 30 years old, which also feels about how long the stairs had been unused, so perhaps long ago this was some kind of cleared observation area: without the growth, it probably would have had a commanding view of the little village with the Ice-Cream Girl cafe.
Still, there was no sign of human activity beyond the last step, so it felt quite eerie.
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/500 sec, f/4.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
View From the Top
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/800 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Zoomed View
down to the mid-level landing, and beyond that, to Paul Barr
Near the bottom of the stairs were some ferns. I'm a sucker for ferns.
One of my many never-started photo projects was to be “steps to nowhere”, photos of old overgrown or rotting staircases like this. I especially like “Thick”, the close shot, because it’s ambiguous. I also like “Destination Unknown” because it’s not about the destination — you can’t see the top; the framing doesn’t even hint at it. It’s just a portrait of the staircase itself.