Photography: The Evanescent Beauty of Winter’s Touch

If we look around ourselves, we will find examples of evanescence everywhere.  Life is abound with it.  Clouds stretch across the sky.  Sometimes their movement is a slow crawl and other times they move swiftly in one direction or another.  While I am often busy, I am often filled with the urge to just lay down on the grass and just watch them pass.  I guess I got that from growing up in the mountains – a favorite pastime of mine was to watch the sky’s movements.  I still do love that, but don’t have as much free time to remind myself.

 

Just as we notice the evanescent ways of clouds, so too should we see it in the flora and fauna that surrounds us.  They move quickly from one stage to the next – first a bud, then the bloom, and later a leaning stalk awaiting winter to pass.  In the end, it eventually becomes the dust with which other plants may grow.

 

These are all the things I love to photograph.  Perhaps it is because I know they are always changing.  Just as you reach out your hand to touch them, the moment is gone.  I want to remind myself, I was here and I witnessed this beauty.  It is not to say the next stage is not as worthy – but to accept that things will never be the same and to celebrate what was and is.

 

No matter how often I look into the sky, I will never see the same pattern of shapes.  Were I to travel from one place to another, I would notice the sky is not the same.  It is all an intricate pattern of impact – things like the temperature and the climate.  It is a dizzying assortment of factors that create what we see.  If I had enough time, I would love to immerse myself in their mysteries – know exactly why things are the way they are to appreciate them all the more.

 

The same is true of seasons – we live our lives in a continual rotation of different periods in time, each bringing with them different weather, temperatures and characteristics.  Inside my heart, I also notice that along with these seasons come different moods and feelings.  So yes, everything around us is constantly changing, just as we are.  I find it amazing to see how everything falls into place.

 

So today, as I think of evanescence – I think of all the reasons I take up the camera.  I want to capture those moments and set them aside for a day when I need to see them most, because they are so quickly fleeting.  That sunshine, those snow-topped mountain peaks in the distance, that swathe of clouds across the sky… I shall never see them again because in truth, they are never completely the same.  And with global warming an issue, I wonder if someday they will only be a faded memory from the past.

 

Today, I thought I would share with you photographs of a season that many would assume I adore just a little less.  Truly, I could not say that this is true… aside from the fact that most of my “clan” hates the cold and are afraid they will die if the wind blows a little 😀.  I remember a time when I went cross-country skiing in the Poconos.  I remember the stillness, the silence, and the untouched snow.  There was something incredibly soothing and special about being somewhere that no one else had been.  There were no footprints or track marks, aside from those of animals passing by.  There is also something rather soothing about hearing your own breaths and watching them circle around you in the cold.

 

So yes, I do love the silence of an untouched winter – just usually we are stuck indoors pressing our faces against the windows to count snowflakes.  If we are outdoors, we are trudging through the stuff perhaps for a doctor’s appointment.  So in that way, it loses its meaning.  In truth, I glide across the snow just as I did years ago cross-country skiing.  It is in my imagination and there is a silence that thrills my heart.  I watch the snow gently fall and I am entranced at the way snow cuddles upon branches of fir trees or precariously hangs from naked trees.  Whenever I see the snow falling, I think of this.  I am transported.  So today, I celebrate winter and its evanescent beauty.

 

 

 

 

 

The beauty is that these photos were taken toward the edge of winter and spring.  Already you can see green grass beginning to grow.  It is so beautiful how winter fades here.  Even now, the temperatures are warmer, flowers are starting to bloom, and trees are starting to unfold their leaves – but if you look toward the mountains, they are covered with snow.  Of all the things I have ever seen, that is what truly touches my heart.  I cherish it and find its beauty overwhelming.

 

 

 

Submitted for The Daily Post Photography Challenge: Evanescent

© Sumyanna 2017

 

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