While hiking yesterday I had a realization.
It was always easy for me to make photographs of the landscape around Idaho Falls and Rexburg and in Island Park. I loved, and still love, those places, so meaningful photographs just came easy.
When I first moved here to Logan, it was hard for me to make meaningful photographs. The landscape seemed so foreign to me, even though I was no stranger to Cache Valley. I was no stranger to the kind of landscape in which Logan is situated, and I was no stranger to mountains. But the reason for my moving here was to pursue a Masters Degree in photography, and, being thrust into needing to produce work regularly, I found myself facing creative roadblocks at almost every turn. Nearly every square foot of land in Cache Valley has been developed in one form or another, from farm use to residential and commercial use. That said, I can deal with urbanization and Man's impact on land easily enough. My whole B.F.A. project was centered around man's alteration and recreation of Nature. But the Upper Snake River Plain has very little radical variation in elevation. Cache Valley is locked in by mountains, and they induced a sense of visual claustrophobia in me to the point of near creative break-down. I've always been drawn to photographing bodies of water, whether they be lakes, rivers, streams, etc., so I would drive up Logan Canyon to photograph the Logan River, but that induced the claustrophobia as well as being faced with entangling vegetation, and I rarely came away with a photograph I was pleased with.
So, on to the realization: maybe I've needed four years in Logan. Four years of hiking trails, fishing the rivers, and driving up and down the highways to call this place Home and finally start to make photographs of a place I have come to truly care about.
Home Waters
Home is where the heart is. We've all heard it. By that definition, I think I have at least half a dozen homes, from Idaho Falls, to Rexburg, to Island Park, to the Canary Islands, to right here in Logan.
So, what is my "home water"?
I learned to fly fish on the Falls River, beneath an old railroad bridge. Just in that one short stretch of river, there are several types of water to fish. It's nice and wide and has a nice shallow section that kids can wade pretty easily. I have a lot of fond memories of that place. Crossing the railroad bridge that's about 50 feet above the water, on railroad ties that were spread far enough apart that me and my brothers thought we would surely fall to our death if we made one false step. Every time we went there, we would pull an old railroad spike, or some other rusted piece of metal that once held the rails on the bridge, and take it home as a souvenir. I remember one of my brothers waving his rod back and forth like he was trying to fend off a few hundred dozen birds from Alfred Hitchcock's movie.
I also spent time fishing on the South Fork of the Snake River. I remember wading through water cress and other aquatic plants that hid the bottom of the river and all the deep holes that seemed to want to swallow me whole.
I remember my brother snagging his crayfish fly in a tree on the banks of the Madison River in Yellowstone. My late grandfather was on that trip. In fact, I think he was the one that bought that crayfish in a fly shop in West Yellowstone.
Now, by the definition of "home" as being one's geographic location, my "home waters" are the Logan and the Blacksmith Fork Rivers. I've really grown to love these two rivers, especially the Blacksmith Fork. They're both pretty narrow rivers, both are really overgrown, and there's very little calm water on either, though the Blacksmith Fork is a little slower than the Logan. I've fished them so much, that when I return to the rivers I fished as a young teenager, I almost forget the tactics I have to use on bigger, wider rivers.
I've lived in Orem, and Salt Lake City, and I didn't really feel inclined to claim either as Home, or call myself a Utahan. I've lived here in Logan for just under four years now, and though I still hesitate to call myself a Utahan, Logan is one of the places I call Home, and if I ever leave, I'm sure it's a place my heart will be.