Hope is F%@!ing Awesome

Lessons (with a camera) from the forest.

I got an email a week or so ago from a company asking me for photographs that could fit the theme of “a walk in the forest.”

It was a cool project, and I wanted to make an impression by sending my best forest photos… but then I freaked out.

I don’t have many traditional “forest” shots like I imagined they might be looking for.

I live in Nebraska, for goodness sake. Forests??

So, I fired up Google Maps in order to plan some possible routes to find some “real” forests I might be able to photograph.

Colorado isn’t far. Minnesota and Wisconsin have some great forests too. But the coasts? I bet the Redwoods would be epic. And the East Coast is full of those idyllic hills and forest views.

As I was mapping out routes and figuring out how I’d pay for the trip (and hoping my 150K plus car would survive a cross-country trek), I took a few cameras and almost subconsciously went for a walk at Fontenelle Forest in Bellevue, Nebraska.

It’s a place I’ve known since I first learned how to walk. My mother would take me there, and the two of us would wander the grown-over paths. She taught me about bird calls, how beavers could literally re-shape the wetlands, and to always love and respect nature.

These forest paths became part of my DNA, but somehow, even after 25 years of being a photographer, I have very few photos from Fontenelle.

There is a valley there just across some train tracks near the Fontenelle wetlands I haven’t walked since I was a kid. For some reason, I just didn’t think it would be “pretty” enough.

What was I thinking?

The valley was… stunning. Early spring revealed tiny wildflowers, and the pathway was full of new growth.

I walked through here with a sense of child-like awe, remembering my mom’s hand in mine, and when I heard this Chickadee song, I almost cried:

The Chickadee (and many others) sang as I walked, and I felt fully present for the first time in years.

This was last week, and I’ve been back almost every day since.

Depression is a brutal thing. It’s a cloud of unrelenting, invisible, indescribable sadness, and I’ve been dealing with it for decades. I’ve watched myself degrade from a hopeful young husband and father to a person I couldn’t even look at in the mirror.

But lately, the cloud has been lifting, and this forest is a reminder of how far I’ve come recently as I’ve gotten REAL (professional) help with my sadness for the first time in my life.

A few days ago I asked my wife to come for a walk with me here, and the smile on her face was more uplifting than anything I’ve seen in a long, long time.

She held my hand as we walked, both of us amazed by spring’s simple beauty. The sound of the water. The creaking of trees. The butterflies fluttering among the tiny flowers.

The forest is always becoming something new.

It’s a reflection of ourselves: Changing. Living, Resilient.

When I got home from our walk through the valley, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

I didn’t look away. I remembered my wife’s hand in mine during early spring, the Chickadee’s song, and my mother’s lessons… and I smiled.

I didn’t hate what I saw.

Hope is a wonderful thing.

(Photographers - these were all taken with a mix of the OM-1 MarkII, OM-3, Fujifilm GFX 100s, and my iPhone 17 Pro. Most are straight-out-of-camera jpegs.)

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