Belmont Woods

For many years I have walked the trails of the woods below Belmont Plateau in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. Accompanied by friends, dogs, and sometimes simply my own thoughts, I have returned to these paths through all seasons and in all kinds of weather.

The photographs in this series are not intended as straightforward landscape pictures. Rather, they reflect a way of seeing shaped by time, memory, and imagination. Influenced by the phenomenon of pareidolia—the tendency to perceive faces, figures, and stories within natural forms—I have often discovered unexpected images hidden among leaves, branches, roots, shadows, and stones.

Some of these photographs were made years ago; others were made only recently. Together they reflect an ongoing relationship with a familiar place that continues to reveal new mysteries and possibilities with every walk.

—Laurence Salzmann