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What drives me to capture certain photos? What's going on in my mind when I share them? It's hard to tell sometimes, but this is where I'll offer glimpses into the randomness that results from a camera in my hands. Be sure to visit my Flickr page for my general photography collection or Google+ for my collection of mobile phone photos.
The Journey
As a basis for change, we need to recognize that as long as we live in this world we will encounter problems, things that obstruct the fulfillment of our goals. If, when these happen, we lose hope and become discouraged, we diminish our ability to face these difficulties.
—His Holiness the Dalai Lama, The Compassionate Life.
For me, life is all about the journey. When we think we’ve found contentment and comfort, that’s usually when unhappiness creeps in. If we are always striving for something better, we stay filled with hope, and life seems to have much more purpose. If nothing else, we stay too busy to let things make us unhappy.
Inspiration
I love winter—I really do. I love the snow and brisk clean air, and I always have enough 
pockets to carry everything. (I lose things more often in summer!) But spring just inspires the soul so much more. It gives pause. Sometimes it even takes the breath away. But it almost always gives hope.
Perhaps spring just inspires the hope that all things can be reborn, at least with a new look or a fresh start, even if not with a new purpose. I keep waiting for my chance to burst out with a new identity or new direction. I keep feeling that it’s coming, and I guess spring reminds me that it’s still within reach.
I guess my obsessions with butterflies and flowers make more sense than I thought. And that’s the theme for the last few weeks: transitions from decay to life, new growth, rebirth, or just the newness of it all. Spring is here: embrace the change.
Variations on a Theme
Winter was pretty bad this year. The snow lingered for a bit, then we hit a few days of 60 degrees pretty early on. Now it’s April and we’ve hit 80 a few times already, despite some cool days below 50. Spring was a welcome site this year! Don’t get me wrong. I love winter, but spring and summer are better for my health.
Seasons Change…People Change.
Autumn is all but gone. The colors seemed to come out of nowhere, bursting in beautiful intensity until all the world seemed to have a new coat of paint. It was magical—short, but magical. I really wasn’t expecting much this year, considering the near-drought conditions of summer that caused many trees to drop leaves a month early. But somehow, nature held back just enough for the big finale.
Isn’t that how life should be though? Full of surprises, born out of both restraint and bursts of activity? Nature has few real rules, and sometimes it’s too bad life can’t be that way. Most of us change—some more than others. The confines of life sometimes smother us as we change. We get trapped in some life that no longer feels like it belongs to us. I know that feeling all too well. Perhaps as the last leaves fall from the trees, I’ll be able to show my true colors again. I think I’ve held back long enough.
It’s a thought.
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Dreaming
Even at my age, I find that I’m often dreaming–not those fantasies about weird or illogical things, but dreaming, nonetheless. My kind of dreaming is just getting wrapped up in the small things around me–the things most people just ignore, deliberately or by default.
When I see a butterfly, I don’t just say “oooh, pretty,” before snapping a photo. I sort of go into his world, and become engrossed in all things butterfly. If I see a simple park bench, I imagine all the people that have sat there, whiling away the hours. If I’m lucky enough to end up in a place with history, not only do I go back in time to envision the life the place once held, but I also become obsessed in researching it when I get back to the “real world.”
This dreaming is one reason I seem to take a LOT of photos of particular subjects–and why I capture subjects that won’t even interest many people. It’s because I’m dreaming–about mushrooms, bugs, rocks…even dirt. It’s just how I operate.
Random Phone Photos
