Julie Kenward
09-29-2008, 08:55 PM
I can't tell you what the first evidence of autumn is doing to me inside. I keep saying I'm going to sit down and blog about it but I don't think I've been able to form the words until now. Between the little pockets and splashes of color and the slight crispness that is just now hitting the air, I am speechless and awed by it all.
It is my 48th autumn - and yet it is my first. I've photographed hundreds of leaves over the past two years yet each one this year feels like a whole new experience. It is this camera that has stirred me up inside - I knew it would - and I am deeply transformed each and every time I carry it out into the field.
And so it begins...my first fall season with a real camera. There are weeks ahead of long walks in the woods, colors that will expode inside the boundaries of an image, and watery reflections so full of light that the naked eye can barely comprehend it.
I look back tonight and realize that depression did not kill me. Heart disease did not kill me. Lost loves and tornadoes and downed power lines have not killed me. I have survived it all - survived and thrived. I have picked up the pieces and I have walked towards the promise of another day...towards a brand new life...walked forward towards a whole new world.
I stand in awe of His creation - of His imagination - of His unending variations that comprise the universe as we know it. I stand in awe of light that dances on the broken surface of a lake, shattered like an atom split in two. I unravel at the infinite number of shades and hues that every color produces within the confines and limits of this thing we humans refer to as "nature." I stand in awe of sunsets the color of bonfires and dawns that throw rosy pink sunlight across a sky with the staggering splash of an imaginary push broom. I glance into the night and wonder - are there more leaves on the ground or more stars in the sky? Who can count? Who can dream that high?
Not I.
I am overcome. I am undone. I am unwound and unnerved and outsung. I am three years now into my second go 'round at life and I am only just a toddler, anxious to unwrap that next present and see what lies beneath the bright and shiny surface.
It is my 48th autumn and, yet, it is my first fall.
It is my 48th autumn - and yet it is my first. I've photographed hundreds of leaves over the past two years yet each one this year feels like a whole new experience. It is this camera that has stirred me up inside - I knew it would - and I am deeply transformed each and every time I carry it out into the field.
And so it begins...my first fall season with a real camera. There are weeks ahead of long walks in the woods, colors that will expode inside the boundaries of an image, and watery reflections so full of light that the naked eye can barely comprehend it.
I look back tonight and realize that depression did not kill me. Heart disease did not kill me. Lost loves and tornadoes and downed power lines have not killed me. I have survived it all - survived and thrived. I have picked up the pieces and I have walked towards the promise of another day...towards a brand new life...walked forward towards a whole new world.
I stand in awe of His creation - of His imagination - of His unending variations that comprise the universe as we know it. I stand in awe of light that dances on the broken surface of a lake, shattered like an atom split in two. I unravel at the infinite number of shades and hues that every color produces within the confines and limits of this thing we humans refer to as "nature." I stand in awe of sunsets the color of bonfires and dawns that throw rosy pink sunlight across a sky with the staggering splash of an imaginary push broom. I glance into the night and wonder - are there more leaves on the ground or more stars in the sky? Who can count? Who can dream that high?
Not I.
I am overcome. I am undone. I am unwound and unnerved and outsung. I am three years now into my second go 'round at life and I am only just a toddler, anxious to unwrap that next present and see what lies beneath the bright and shiny surface.
It is my 48th autumn and, yet, it is my first fall.