From my journal (March 2025):

Where are the Maidenhair Ferns?  I’m anxious to see and photograph the new, juvenile shoots, subjects behind my lens that have become a large part of my spring ephemeral experience.  Last season’s ferns lay limp across the steep slopes all around the waterfall I’m visiting, teasing me with their abundance and imminent resurgence.  I gently scrape last seasons leaves away from their bases- seeking, searching, hoping–to find the new juvenile shoots.  The land all around me is primed to explode with new growth very soon.  But will I be here to see them?  Or, will I have to wait for next year, a time that is not guaranteed to come?

On the very last day of my trip to the Blue Ridge Escarpment in South Carolina this March I combed the landscape at several locations, hoping to find the juvenile shoots of Maidenhair Fern.  Their bright red stems and translucent yellowish/green leaves have become perhaps the most fascinating subject I get to put behind my lens each year.  Each plant spends a handful of days in this adolescent stage before spreading and dropping their graceful line of delicate leaves.  The window is tight.  And I think I’ve found a couple.  Two to be specific.  Each in a slightly different stage of unfurl.

I’m both ecstatic and frustrated, if that’s possible.  I’m too early for the heart of the bloom.  And the scarcity is leaving me with only two plants to work.  They’re in very difficult locations:  wet and steep.  I take nearly one hundred frames, fifty per plant figuring this brute force strategy ought to get lucky at least once with each!  That’s sort of how it works for me when I’m handholding a macro lens at two- to three-times life size magnifications.  Add in being underneath a waterfall and on a rock ledge and the odds go down even further.

I got one frame.  This one.  It was still worth it.

Camera:  Canon 5DSr
Lens:  Canon 65mm mpe
Tripod:  handheld w/ flash

Date taken:  March 19, 2025
Settings:  f14, 1/250 second, iso 100