There was a moment towards the end of yesterday morning’s shoot, when birds were flying south, birds were flying north, and the sun was bursting with fiery reds and I actually said to myself “stop, there’s too much beauty”.
And I did.
I stopped taking pictures and I just watched.
For a few minutes the world played out its early morning symphony and their wasn’t a single shutter-click to capture it. So, forgive me …
But yesterday morning was just one of those godsends. You know those moments. Your soul is crying out for respite from a miserable week and the gods deliver.
And for almost my whole visit there, it was just me, the birds, the planet, and me. Yes, it was so good, I was there twice. In body and soul.
And as this wondrous beauty played out all around me, I realized how the scope of the lens fails in such instances. Of 360 degree happenings, it captures less than 90.
So, I would have needed four or five cameras all going at the same time to blanket shoot what was going on. Not to mention the ten hands holding the cameras and pushing the buttons.
Anyway, I hope you like what I did capture. Images at the end of this blog.
Oh, and I did put a short video (less than a minute) up on youtube, if you want proof that I wasn’t altering any colors, Check it out!
Too much beauty! Boy, what a complaint.
It is almost shameful to voice that phrase yet as I climbed back into the car and drove home, that is exactly what was ringing inside my head.
Saturation of anything can occur when we get too much of it. No matter how much we love the “it”.
It is why after a lengthy vacation, we yearn to get back to work even though we couldn’t wait for the vacation before we went on it.
It is why we could stand in a field of gorgeous red roses, yet our eyes would finally focus on the one little daisy standing in the corner.
It is why after three or four days of leftovers, we just can’t even contemplate another serving of turkey and ham.
It is why I can send 24 lovely color images of a client to them and yet they will almost always love the one black and white, I added as an afterthought.
Life serves us up wonderful moments quite sparingly, to where we rarely saturate on them. So, these type of situations don’t seem to happen very often.
We can identify with the type of situations I wrote about above, but they don’t really happen very often to us.
Or do they?
It is the subtle saturations of beauty that go unnoticed on a daily basis.
For example, Floridians are so used to blue skies and sunshine that when a cold rainy day happens in December they all comment about how they absolutely love this kind of day.
Kids get so used to mom’s home cooking that they moan when sitting down to the 45th cooked meal in a row and ask “can’t we just order pizza?”
We marry the most beautiful girl of our dreams only a few months later to not even notice her when she walks into the room while we are watching football on the TV.
Taking anything for granted is a shameful trait and yet we all fall foul of it.
We often only notice that we have done so, when time has taken it away from us. Mom’s home cooked meals become a hugely missed piece of home when we are gone off to college.
But we are better off if we can check ourselves while it happens and realign our mind. Re-calibrate your sensitivity scale to where you force yourself to notice how gorgeous the sky is or the woman who has just walked into the room.
Breathe in the fresh air and remind yourself that each moment needs to be absorbed and enjoyed as if it were your last.
It really isn’t that difficult. On the contrary; all you have to do is pause and close your eyes (I am assuming here that you aren’t driving). Then imagine yourself in a black room, void of all color, sound, smell.
As you stand there, take yourself to where you feel absolutely nothing.
Then when you are ready, open your eyes and breathe in. Imagine that you are seeing this all for the first time and soak in all the details of what you are experiencing. Notice the details, breathe in the smells, and smile.
The smile is the important part because in doing so, you are acknowledging that this is a beautiful moment and it is a source of joy.
Life is mostly full, ladies and gentlemen. And unless you have tapped into my blog from the after-world, you are alive. So enjoy it.
… just a thought!
