Finding hidden beauty

Yes I am still around, just wilting like many others in this heat. Words are having a hard time coming out this week. Too busy, too many things going on at work. These times seem to crowd out the creative thoughts.

Even worse I dropped my camera and am still playing with it to get it to work again. I not sure I could ever repeat such a bargain.

I took this picture last week as I was driving home and approaching the hills of the Berkshires. Taking pictures at 70mph doesn’t always produce the best focus but such is the uniqueness of this blog. The light makes it seem almost black and white, which is the same effect that it had on many pictures I took over the winter when it wasn’t a bright say. This is a $15 camera after all.

But if you really look closely you can see shades of blue and green. A storm is coming up or rather I am driving into one. Here the picture is waves of clouds fluffed up with trees along the edges. Interesting but on the dull side, or is it.

There are many times when the darker shades, whether it be in nature or life in general seem to be dull and sometimes dismissed as being bleak. Take a look at it more closely and you see the hidden subtleties: the patterns, the currents, the shifting textures. The clouds are all moving to the different currents of the storm. The texture of the clouds varies if there is distant rain. There is something special in it that just doesn’t fit the general mold of what is considered beauty.

How many other things can we think of that can fit that description? Most of us don’t fit the classic or marketing definition of beauty yet the textures and colors and patterns and subtleties of our character create a different beauty of its own.

Today our family has been blessed with laughter, roudy humor, hugs, love, meditative thought, good food (I cooked), discussions, literature, friends, sawdust, dirt, music and yes humidity. All in all it was an ordinary day and on its own nothing on the surface might be imagined as extraordinarily beautiful but capturing the depth and texture and flow made the day as beautiful as any scene I can imagine.

So, look for beauty where is its not expected; in the ordinary, in the gray and darker areas, in the routine, in the humid heat. Sense it, feel it – it is there.

And don't underestimate....….My camera doesn’t always do so well in poor light in giving me what I want all the time, but it is wonderful in good light and even in poor light can give me something to study and explore beyond the picture that came through the lenses.