Fans of Northern Woodland’s monthly Reader Photo Gallery may recognize the name Charlie Schwarz, a regular contributor to the gallery. A retired forester and lifelong naturalist, Charlie lives in northcentral Pennsylvania and is an avid photographer.
“I’ve been carrying a camera in forest and field for about 50 years, beginning with a 35mm rangefinder, graduating to a 35mm single lens reflex, and going digital in the early 2000s,” he said. “Wildlife and wildflowers have always been my primary interest, but I also take some photographs of scenery and, naturally, family. Since 2003 I've been doing a weekly blog, In Forest and Field under the name “Woody Meristem” (another name for a tree’s cambium), using my photographs and images from my camera traps.”
In the 1970s, Ralph Harrison, a colleague at the Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry introduced Charlie to the state’s elk herd. Harrison was the authority on elk at the time and wrote several books about Pennsylvania’s elk, and Charlie found another subject for his photography.
“A few times a year I drive out to photograph the elk, which are found in portions of Clearfield, Clinton, Centre, Cameron, and Elk counties, known as Pennsylvania's elk range. Many of my photographs were taken on Winslow Hill where the elk are habituated to humans by the hordes of tourists who visit to see elk during the mid-September rut,” Charlie said. “I much prefer to spend time away from the tourist area, in places where the elk are wild rather than habituated, but where it’s also more difficult to get good photos.”
Two of Schwarz’s elk photographs appear in Joseph Luxbacher’s story about the restoration of Pennsylvania’s elk herd in the Winter issue of Northern Woodlands. Here are several other images, gleaned from the many hundreds of elk photographs in his collection.
