Morning at Beckley Creek Park
The term flâneur comes from the French masculine noun un flâneur [ahn flah-NUR]—which has the basic meanings of ‘stroller’, ‘lounger’, ‘saunterer’, ‘loafer’—which itself comes from the French verb flâner, which means “to stroll”. (Webster's Dictionary)
In this edition of the News from Jarrett Street we find ourselves "strolling, sauntering and loafing" among the landscapes of The Parklands of Floyd’s Fork here in eastern Jefferson County. According the Parkland’s website the area is comprised of five distinct park and woodland areas, that, “cut right through the heart of the last major undeveloped section of Metro Louisville. It preserves a vanishing landscape designed to capture the beauty and function of the Floyd Fork wetlands corridor.” I am beginning my own journey through the over 100 miles of woodland trails and walking paths of the Parklands.
Without a doubt the planners and designers have managed to capture and preserve this beautiful area and all that nature has to offer. Under “Current Work” you will find a few photos of this beautiful woodland park. I plan to add many more in the next few weeks.
Strolling without purpose, nowhere to be, only to be - and to be mindful of your surroundings all of which provides limitless opportunities to see the landscape that at one moment you are enveloped by- and at another separate from - are all there for you to photograph.
In nature it is a spiritual and unseen force that has created the natural beauty of the world around us. And we benefit from the experience. Nowhere is this more true than at the Parklands of Floyd’s Fork.
Flâneur comes from the book of the same name by Edmund White who described it as,
“A flaneur is a stroller, a loiterer, someone who ambles without apparent purpose but is secretly attuned to the beauty & fragility of nature – and is in covert search of adventure.”
The Parkland’s of Floyd’s Fork are at once simplistic and complicated, vibrant and alive, offering up opportunity after opportunity for the photographer and the adventurer! As you journey through the natural beauty of the Parklands you begin to see the fragility of it all, and too often - but for our photographs - the instant will be gone. We have to grab the opportunity, frame the image and the moment is ours.
Loiter as we may, we stroll through these natural landscapes, in search of adventure. From the woodlands and trails of the Parklands, I continue the journey.