Saturday, September 18, 2010

When You Stop, Look, and Listen...

It's surprising what you'll find! Yeah...that was corny/cheesy beyond words. My bad, it's late(ish). Anyways, my daily observations for today are as follows...

So I was sitting outside, prepared to do my homework. I had my poetry book and a book called Blue Like Jazz that someone recommended. The weather was gorgeous today, by the way, perfect for reading outdoors. I sat down at one of the red tables outside Halls. Setting my books, keys, and sunglasses on the table, I glanced down at the brick beneath my feet. A few cigarette butts and green crab apples littered the ground. I stared at them for a moment, gathered my things, and marched back to my room to retrieve my camera. There's my first observation :) I shot the apples and cigarette butts for awhile. I'm sure all my fellow students thought I was slightly insane, crouched on the ground with a massive camera taking pictures of old cigarettes and rotting apples. Obviously, I didn't see them in that light. I like the contrast of the burnt out, and harmful to one's health, cigarette and the tiny green apples.


Since I already had my camera on me, I decided to go take pictures of the sunflowers I saw during my morning run yesterday. I stopped to take a few photos of rocks. You know those large white-ish rocks that people often use in their yards because they're too lazy to have a garden? (Or they have cool Chinese gardens, those are legit) Those are the kinds of rocks I was photographing. I had a few frustrating moments when I couldn't figure out the lighting, all my pictures had a blue hue (that rhymed!). I took a few pictures of perfectly crunchy looking leaves, you know, the kind you just HAVE to step on when they litter the sidewalk in the middle of fall. I was really close to the ground (shooting with my AWESOME macro lens) and saw a rock that had been perfectly broken in half. Only one half of the rock was there, but it had an almost completely straight edge. The edge looked like it would be really sharp, I don't know if it really was or not. For some reason it really struck me. I don't know, I just liked it. That was my second observation. I took a few photos of it, but they didn't really turn out. I don't know how to explain this rock, I guess I just thought it looked really interesting.

 

I proceeded to the sunflowers and took around 60 photos of them. I won't call that my third observation, because I already used the sunflowers. They were awesome though! The sun was shining from one side and lit them all up. It was gorgeous. I'll post a few photos on here after I've gone through them. I just realized I have a lot of observations, bear with me.



I really enjoy photographing plants that are dead or dying. That sounds strange and slightly dark, I know. It's not because I have a fascination with death, or want to glorify the end of life. I like to photograph these because I think they are generally viewed as ugly and worthless. My desire is to capture them in a way that shines beauty on them, instead of casting them in shadows. I don't know if I succeed, but at least I try!



As I walked back I passed a garden bed littered with wilted blue flowers. The sun was shining on them and, to me at least, it was quite stunning. I attempted to capture the moment. That's a fourth observation (the capturing dead plants was the third, because I saw quite a few wilted sunflowers and was struck by them).

Here's my last observation, I promise. After returning from my walk I sat down on a bench outside of Halls to change my camera lenses. I looked out onto the lawn, which was brilliantly green and littered with crunchy-looking brown leaves. The grass was damp, I guess, because it glistened in the light from the sun, I swear it looked like someone had sprinkled diamonds across the grass. I know it's odd that I even notice those sorts of things, and that I find them beautiful, but it truly was breathtaking.

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