Kind Evening

I tried to post last night but blogger was not cooperating. So I will try again tonight, although by now the lyrical momment has passed.

As I drove home yesterday, I saw the sun set on a pillowy layer of fog. It was illuminating the sky in ambers, ochres, and red and was quite lovely. High above some finer clouds seem to be ondulating like ocean waves, pushed by the high winds. It was spectacular. I keep thinking that I should carry a camera with me at all times as when I drive throught the countryside I find all kinds of beauty. I also often wish that I could capture my thoughts. I would have a very nice short story from my musings. Unfortunately, on most days I return home to the tedium of my life, and soon extinguish the inspiration that a momment of peace created as I traveled through our small county, filled with golden hills, green tuffets, and wildlife.


I once had a Environmental Psychology professor who stated that naTure is very random, and almost bleak. He disputed that photographs such as Ansel Adams' work did not represent nature adequately. To illustrate his point, he used a camera, headed for the local hills and pointed the camera to various cardinal points, determined by a randomized computer program. The resulting photographs were boring and bland, only focusing on the patch of grass in front of them. From this he derived that photographers who find bright flowers, tiny bird wings and other wonders in the world were misrepresenting nature as they focused only on small parts of the environment. I so completely disagree with his argument, because the human eye does not wander randomly through our surrounding, rather it selects precise parts of the environment to focus on and examine, and derive emotions from. One person will perceive the exact shade of blue in the sky, another the grayness of the road ahead. Who as the more accurate perception of their surrounding? Each does according to themselves. As I drive through my area, I find flowers on the side of the road, whisps of clouds that the golden rays of the sun are still caressing, a small bird perched on a wire, all of which a camera following computer pre-determined coordinates would miss.