HDR Photography
I may continue to bemoan the theme-park-like atmosphere of Muir Woods by midday on Saturday, but in the very early morning, with dawnlight scattering through the marine layer, it’s easy to forget about all that. There are no words to describe the place without resorting to cliché. Even so, the echoes of “Six Flags: Muir Woods” still exist, like these wood pathways designed to lessen the destruction that would be caused by enormous numbers of visitors on dirt paths.
Though it’s hours downstate from where George Lucas found his forest moon of Endor, Muir Woods packs the same enormous, wet redwood trees and lush vegetation that made the fictional planetoid so memorable. To have “spent” so much of my childhood wandering around on that other world (in my imagination), only to find myself really there, proved to be a spectacular treat at the end of my time in California.
The stunning, overwhelming, almost-heartbreaking Muir Woods National Monument in California has become a photographic cliché. (Thanks, Ansel Adams.) That doesn’t prevent me from discovering something new in every corner and every moment. The incredible contrast of scale between ferns and sequoias twists the mind, and the quiet, misty paths (early in the morning anyway) transport you to an overwhelming alternate world.
Decaseconds 