We photographed in a very small forest. The forest was so small that you could only go into it for about twenty seconds. After that, you’d already leaving it again – so small it was.
This reminds me of those tiny states of Germany before 1871. After the War of Thirty years 1618-1648, in which Germany lost a third of its population, the country broke up into hundreds of tiny states. Some of them were so small you could cross it on foot in just a few hours.
This was made immortal by Johann Nepomuk Nestroy, the witty Austrian playwright. He had a character look out from a castle and report on the proceedings of a character of the play as he walked the country.
To quote from memory (with creative freedom): “Now he’s crossing the Southern border of the state… and walks… walks fast… picks a flowers… and walks… and leaves our beloved country by its Northern border.”
Each of these little states was ruled by a different duke, baron, or some other title bearing landlord. You could have a terrible tyranny in one of those pocket states, and a few miles farther away you could live in the lands of an enlightened prince who wanted his subjects to be educated and enlightened.
The light was very blue in this blue forest, and it still is one of my favorite places at the coast. I have photographed there three times, and every time the forest proved small, but with quickly changing character… like those German pocket states before the Prussian hegemony reunited the split country after 1871 and founded the second German empire, which ended fatally in 1918.
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