Photo Essay: Fancy Hill, by Rob McDonald

by Rob McDonald:

Though I have lived here thirty years, I have never felt settled in Southwest Virginia. It’s a dramatically beautiful place, the Shenandoah Valley of the Blue Ridge Mountains, but my home, where my sensibilities were formed, will always be the sandy coastal plains of South Carolina. Winding roads and deep-green hollows may appear picturesque in some light, but for someone like me, they mostly feel claustrophobic, isolating, unsettling. Whenever my wife, driving to the store in our first months living here, would round a curve and mistake a distant mountain range for a looming storm, I understood.

There’s one spot nearby that has always felt different, however. I noticed it when I visited for the job interview that brought me to the area in 1992, and I have indulged something close to an obsession with it ever since.  Fancy Hill, as it is known, is listed on the Register of Historic Places because of its inclusion in a group of important 19th-century farms known collectively the “Seven Hills of Rockbridge County.” A roadside marker noting its prominence focuses on the main house, a three-story treasure of 18th-century Federal architecture. But what I love is the field: a 21-acre parcel that rolls beautifully down from the house, then up and off toward a high horizon.

Records suggest the topography is virtually unchanged from when Fancy Hill was claimed, mapped, and cleared by Anglo settlers of the region more than two hundred years ago. In this otherwise craggy valley, it’s an especially open and stirring expanse.  From various points outside the post-and-wire boundary fence, the entire landscape is visible, swelling, stretching and dipping, displaying itself. It undulates, almost musically. I have studied it in different seasons and times of day. I believe I could sketch its contours with my eyes closed.  

One day, I looked up the name of the farm’s current owner and called to explain that I wanted to walk out into the field with my camera, to explore a place I’d thought about and imagined for so long. He was receptive, even understanding. He’d inherited the land and decided to protect it with a conservation easement so, unlike adjacent farms of similar beauty that have been subdivided into mini-estates for the new country gentry, it can never be developed. The whole parcel was leased for hay-making, keeping it arable, but I had permission to come and go as I wished.

With that opening, I spent whole mornings and afternoons traipsing up, down, and across Fancy Hill, making photographs in an attempt to represent the experience.  In the process, I learned some things that had been imperceptible from the periphery.

I found very quickly, for example, that the lay of the land at Fancy Hill is neither as gentle nor as comprehensible as it appears. There are demanding grades and dramatic drops. You walk a distance and grow breathless. There are spots where the rest of the world disappears and you’re upright in a cradle of earth, with only the sky for orientation.  

Also, the ground is surprisingly rocky, sheer stone in spots. The vegetation, a uniform and mesmerizing seasonal green or gold from the fence line, is often a frustrating tangle of grasses, weeds, and briars underfoot.  Walking unsettles all manner of flying, hopping, and crawling creatures, some seen, some heard and reasonably surmised. Droppings and tracks suggest regular visitors to a stream that originates in a cinderblock well-house, runs a bit, then disappears.

Another note:  There’s a stand of trees along the high north boundary that I’d not taken into account in all my years of looking from the fence. My eye had always stopped where the grasses end, but right there stands a broad thicket with impressive oaks that must have been seedlings when Fancy Hill was established.  

I discovered that the finest view of the property is under that tree line. Each peak and trough of the landscape is visible, where it originates and how it plays out.  Mirroring the view from below, the wide field appears to flow outward and down toward the enormous main house, which from that spot looks for all the world like a miniature version of itself.

The perspective is clarifying, like the view from a watch tower.

Fancy Hill, it turns out, is most beautiful in context of this whole place, encircled, defined, and clarified by a dark line running in the distance—not a storm, but the ancient rambling range of the Blue Ridge.

***

Rob McDonald is a native of South Carolina and lived in both Tennessee and Texas before moving to Virginia in 1992. He was awarded a Professional Fellowship (Photography) from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in 2019-2020 and was a residential fellow in the Visual Arts at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in 2013. Find him online at robmcdonaldphotography.com. Connect with him on Twitter at @RobMcDonaldVA.

The Quarantined Photographer

By Stuart J. DuBreuil:

Nature is impersonal, awe-inspiring, elegant, eternal. It's geometrically perfect. It's tiny and gigantic. You can travel far to be in a beautiful natural setting, or you can observe it in your backyard...
– Gretchen Rubin

My time in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks was inspirational. The abundance of wildlife, in their own unique habitat, far exceeded this photographer’s expectations. Now, like most of us, for the last several weeks I’ve been in self quarantine with my wife at our townhouse in the west end of Richmond, Virginia.

So, what’s an amateur wildlife photographer to do? I found that while I couldn’t venture out to find the animals, they kindly came to me. Or rather, I discovered that they had always been around, but that I just hadn’t seen them. Isolation has taught me to slow down and observe my surroundings. As it turns out, the backyards, front lawns, and surrounding grounds and airspace in the neighborhood is teeming with wildlife. 

We have a bird feeder on a pole in our backyard, just beyond our deck. We fill it with black oil sunflower seeds, approved by the National Audubon Society – you know, the good stuff, that the birds love. It attracts cardinals, robins, finches, sparrows and other birds I haven’t identified yet. It also attracts squirrels and chipmunks, who can’t get to the feeder directly because we have a conical guard on the pole that prevents them from climbing up.  But the birds are generous. While they are feasting at the feeder they also flick out seeds onto the grass and deck so other creatures can share in the banquet. 

I witness this activity daily from inside the house, behind the sliding glass doors that lead to our deck. I will peer through the vertical blinds so I won’t frighten off the wildlife, and then take my photos through the glass door. Recently, I’ve found that I can walk out onto the deck, and if I walk slowly with no sudden motion, I can photograph the creatures without scaring them off. 

My next door neighbor, Scott, is also a keen observer of wildlife. He is working from home, but seems to have plenty of time to look out the window and spot interesting things going on. He will text my phone to let me know when he sees something that I may want to photograph. He told me about the  robin’s nest under his roof gutter, nestled on top of the curved section of the down spout. I was able to get some shots of the mother robin feeding worms to her baby chick. 

He also texted me about two other baby birds that were on his back lawn. One managed to fly up onto the brick wall that divides our yards. I carefully followed this tiny creature’s journey as he plopped down onto our deck and walked across towards the other side of our yard. I was outside, taking lots of photos, until he disappeared into heavy foliage. I spotted him squeeze through a small hole in the wooden fence leading to my other neighbor’s yard. Looking over the fence, I could see him meet up with a larger bird, who I assumed was his mother. I’m not sure what type of birds they were, but it was rewarding to see the reunion.

This is only a sampling of the drama that plays out daily in our yards. Sometimes it is life or death. I once saw one of the neighborhood cats on top of the brick dividing wall staring intensely at something on the other side of my deck. There was a chipmunk backed up into the corner against my house and the other neighbor’s brick dividing wall. Suddenly the cat pounced, and in the blink of an eye he had that chipmunk trapped in his jaws. He hesitated for a second and then bounded straight up the brick wall, prey in mouth, and was gone. 

By far the most amazing spot by my neighbor, Scott, was outside his front door steps. He texted me to look outside at his front steps railing. There, perched on the black wrought iron railing, I saw a magnificent hawk. It must have been 15 to 18 inches long including the long gray and black striped tail. I had never seen one like it before. I later identified it as an adult Cooper’s Hawk, with it’s reddish-orange barred chest and legs and gray back feathers. The head was capped black, and the eyes were bright red. I grabbed my camera and starting snapping away, hoping he wouldn’t fly off too soon.

Turns out he was not skittish at all, like the backyard feeder birds. In fact, it looked like he was poising for me. With his extremely flexible neck, he moved his head to see in any and all directions, while keeping his body perfectly still. He looked left, right, up, down, and behind and down so the head disappeared completely!  When he got bored with that, he flew off the railing onto my front lawn, startling me, so I stepped backwards. From there he pranced across the grass like a runway model, as I snapped away, hardly believing my good fortune. Then in an instant, he flew off.

My neighbor and I would also scan the skies for large birds flying by, like the Turkey Vulture or Blue Heron. Capturing birds in flight with the camera can be challenging, but I’m getting better at it with practice. Scott noticed that a Blue Heron flies over our houses twice a day, in the morning and in late afternoon, going and coming from somewhere close. I’ve been able to get a few good photos of the bird passing overhead. 

The life and death struggles of wildlife can remind me of what’s going on outside our little oasis. My wife and I are among the lucky ones. We’re healthy, retired senior citizens and we’ve so far been able to escape the harsh reality of getting sick, like so many others all around us. Just a few blocks down the road is an elder rehab center that has lost over 50 people due to the COVID-19 virus. We try not to forget them, nor the brave medical professionals who care for patients every day while putting themselves at great risk. Quarantine time has given me the chance to slow down, observe, and reflect on what’s important in life; and for that I am grateful.

***

Website for Stuart DuBreuil and Yoko Gushi