I have one favorite photograph that I have never shared. I cannot explain why I really love this photo, only to admit that I do. It is unusual for me – given that my chosen view is often flowers, mountains, or some other natural beauty. So here she is…
I think what I love most about it is the stories that it provokes. It also (for me) reminds me of the day I took the photo. Somewhere, nestled in between those feelings, is also the amazement I felt about finding beauty in such an unusual place – it was something I was not expecting.
I took this and the following photos two years ago, when the kids and I took a morning walk to the grocery store. That morning, out of nowhere – we had an early snow (which is more common than you might think in Colorado). Many red and golden leaves were still clinging to the trees and the grass was still a verdant green.
It was a strange sight to see – lush grass, covered in snow.
We sat and enjoyed coffee and hot chocolate at Starbucks and then ventured on home again. It was a sight to see – all of the snow had already melted and it was starting to warm up again. I actually was crazy enough to let the kids jump into puddles so I could take some photographs (I shared these back then). It was an amazing day and looking at these photographs just brings the memories back.
Since starting to focus more on my photography, I have only learned there are more beautiful things to see and more interesting ways to look at the world around me. We are not limited in any way – unless we are willing to limit ourselves.
So now, when I walk out my door – I always try to remember to enjoy the beauty that is around me. I may not be nestled in the mountains or living near a stream, brook, or ocean – but beauty is always there, waiting to be noticed. Photography has opened my eyes, as well as given me a deeper appreciation for all that I have – even if it is a photograph of a grocery cart sitting in the rain… It’s not always clean, it’s not always perfect – but it is always real.
(c) Sumyanna 2017
Submitted for The Daily Post Photography Challenge: unusual
Sumyanna Writes 
I love your unusual photos!
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Thank you!
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This post made me realized that we should not ignore the seemingly simple things in life (like fallen leaves, cart, snow, grass, etc., etc.). They are actually beautiful and come to life when photographed. Thanks for sharing.
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So very true and glad the post made you think of that. Could not ask for more 🙂
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Reblogged this on WILDsound Writing and Film Festival Review.
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Thank you so very much for sharing!
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Like this a lot, I tend to look for the same when I do my photography. There are no ugly subjects and to prove it I took images of mold: check it out https://digitalphoto.blog/2016/11/29/first-blog-post/
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Amazing photography! Wow. I’ve taken photos as well with a digital microscope, but of bubbles. I cannot say how much I love this and thank you highly for letting me know about your page. Now a proud follower 🙂 By the way, I tried to leave a comment on your page but there is no “enter” button once you type it up.
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Thanks for the kind comment, Sumyanna. Will have a look at that button 🙂
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I really love the shopping trolley and the sign! I too love finding beauty in unusual things. And in every day life 🙂 I have some on my gallery
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Thank you very much! I look forward to checking out your blog!
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Your welcome! 😊 have a nice day!
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Love the one of the leaf in the puddle and the one with the tree sheltering the grass from the snow. You have a great eye! I look forward to reading a fellow photographer’s posts. 😁❤
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Thank you very much. That day was especially lovely and I got many great photos. Some days just turn out that way… or perhaps it is just that some days I am more aware of the beauty around me 🙂
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I know what you mean 😊
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Great post! I can see what you mean there is something very appealing about the trolly photo. It’s like the water has stopped it in its tracks from fulfilling it purpose. Look forward to your next post 🙂
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I know what you mean. For me, it just holds a story. Thank you so very much!
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This post made me smile ( and I love the shopping trolley photograph) because I’ve just written this https://helensphotomania.wordpress.com/2017/08/28/beauty-in-death-2/
There is indeed beauty in everything..
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You have proven your point 🙂 Fabulous photos.
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Photography is not everyone’s cup of tea. And you have got real talent in it. And the best part is, you make use of it and show it to the world. Your photographs are so lively that people could look into each little thing in a different way.
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Thank you so very much for that. I don’t know why I enjoy it so much, but I certainly do. I guess I find those moments rather peaceful.
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Nice 🙂
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Thank you!
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I too find the cart picture intriguing – I think it is the reflections. I also love the last one of the sign and bright blue sky. Beauty is often in unusual places!
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I know. It just makes me think… and sometimes I feel that you are swept up into the picture trying to imagine the scene 🙂 So glad you like them and yes, I definitely agree. Beauty is everywhere!
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I like your favorite photograph, and I love the one which shows how the warm tree roots have melted the snow, but the one which really does it for me is the image of the channel of water reflecting a signpost. It’s beautiful, and there’s something about the smudge of blue, painted on a paving stone; such a little thing – nobody may have ever seen it, but you’ve captured it for posterity. And there’s a small story behind it; something which caused it to be there. We’ll never know that story.
Photographs tell so much, and hide so much.
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Yes, I think that was the moment that I realized that every day things can also be lovely. The signpost photo is one of my ABSOLUTE favorites. I just love that I could capture what I would have puzzled over and enjoyed 🙂 Your last statement is so incredibly true!
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I went to the beach recently. The shore was littered with scraps of plastic; it wasn’t like that when I was a child. I tried to persuade myself that there is beauty in the synthetic colours on the sand, but all I could see was ugly truth. Perhaps your camera could have picked out a detail and made it beautiful…
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I think that any destruction of nature would be hard to make pretty. I have heard how hard it is and at the aquariums here they often have exhibits about the amount of plastics found. I think it is devastating and the impact on the creatures below is horrible. I really wonder about people who are so thoughtless and careless to litter. How sad to take things so for granted, but often I have found people only appreciate things when it is already too late.
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The most shocking example of littering I ever saw was in India. I was an a coach in the middle of nowhere between Goa and Mumbai, driving through terrain that was almost flat. There was an area of scrubby, gorse-like bushes, and these wild shrubs were covered with plastic carrier bags. I suppose the wind constantly blew them along, until they caught on the thorns – and there they stayed, gradually building up. There were masses of them. It was a sad sight. In the cities they would probably have been scavenged and used for making something; I once had two decorative chickens in my garden, constructed of carrier bags. They were made in India.
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I’ve seen it overseas as well. It is heartbreaking. The land can be so much more beautiful were we to take better care of it. I have seen videos online showing women weaving baskets made of shopping bags. That’s probably the same thing. So good to see some good can come out of it.
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For a while there was a bit of a fashion in the UK for accessories made out of recycled packaging, including soft-drinks cans and their ring-pulls, but unfortunately it never became mainstream.
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It was fashionable at one point here too, but I haven’t seen it much lately. They even started selling things like that in the standard stores. Ah, a fad. The earth cries, but we remain silent. Pass me another water bottle!
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Let’s not start on how those who have clean water gushing from taps, buy it in bottles, while millions have to drink out of contaminated puddles…
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So true, in some countries they have very little in the way of water, if anything. You see them conserve and you feel incredibly guilty about your own waste.
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Toilets that flush, showers that gush…
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Love this post 🖤
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Some stunning photos in this series!
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Thank you very much!
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Strangely, here for the first time in recorded history it snowed very slightly on the ground as well as the mountains in Cape Town. It is usually to warm for snow, as the evening temperatures in Cape Town seldom fall to under ten degrees C, but for the past while it has been continuously under ten, and on the day it snowed, just below zero. Taking up photography forces one to look at everything for a composition, and a story, so it fits ideally with poetry and writing, as one is also looking to involve every day things into ones imagination and web of feelings to produce those few wonderful words that tell the story. Best wishes and blessings, Charles.
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I seriously can’t imagine what it must look like with snow there! Here, it is easy. We see it every year. 🙂 Hope you got a snowball fight in. You are right… poetry and photography seem to be a good marriage.
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You are right, even on top of Table Mountain, it has only snowed 3 times in the 60 years of my life. It is only on the mountains to the east of the city that it snows. I have had a snowball fight once, one of my biographical poems told that story.
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Oh wow – only 3 times? It’s not surprising though… or perhaps it is… that it did snow. Temperatures and climate seem to be changing fast these days. Even now our weather is not the same as it was when we first moved here around 16 years ago. Oh, I think I missed that poem. Is it shared on your blog? I will have to hunt that one down!
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It was called nightmares, and posted in poetry on the 10th July this year. Yes the climate here has changed radically over the last few years as well. Strangely it has got way colder in winter and way warmer in summer.
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As soon as you mentioned the title I remembered reading it. Hopefully it can reverse itself or at least we can halt the damage before it gets worse.
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Yes, in this country desertification is rampant, and the Kalahari desert is now moving through the Northern Cape towards Johannesburg at an alarming rate, the Karoo is moving ever closer to Cape Town. if it gets too near, we will start having desert heats of over 40C in summer, and temperature way below zero at night.
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Now that has to be scary! Here, it is getting warmer all around us. We are not having that bad a time but we have had floods and other unusual temperatures/weather patterns. I can’t imagine what it will take for those who won’t accept climate change as a real problem.
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I often wonder if they also believe that the world is flat and the centre of the universe! It is a huge problem, and it seems like there are other reasons for climate change as well, which does not help. It seems that captains of industry do not believe in it, as it will ultimately cost them dearly to believe in climate change.
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I would not be that surprised 😉 Things rarely change until they have to. People have yet to learn to be forward thinking and those that are – are treated as backwards. Strange, isn’t it? I think they do not “believe in it” because they would have to change the way they do things. If they can get away with something they will, until they are found out.
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Out here if you think differently people say things like, this person has a wonderful open soul, but is impracticle and completely misguided. In the past many people who had different ideas were accused of being witches. I think you are right people will get away with what they can, and if something seems like to much of a bother, then they only pay lip service to it. Perhaps that is all the more reason to keep these ideas current and on peoples tongues.
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I know what you mean… but aren’t all those who made a difference and were remembered the same? I kind of think of it as a compliment, although it does hurt sometimes to stand out from the crowd. Scary to think about being called a witch – and with serious consequences. Yes, we must keep trying to get the word out 🙂
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I think this all depends on many things, and who is evaluating one. Many people have an opinion on me for instance, and for those that I help directly and indirectly I am some sort of a hero, but many others see me as a fool on the hill interfering with their lives, and trying destroy their hard earned luxury. Actually there needs to be more balanced in the way that people that are different are looked at. Often actually people with wealth and authority don’t seem to realise what relatively small changes from them could make the world a far better safer place to live. So many need help (not handouts) and we can do carry on with this, but it is the others that we need to help realise what a huge difference they could so easily make. Well I hope that made sense, as I seem to be getting lost in my own thoughts here!
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Well, I think sometimes people define us by how they can maneuver us to get what they way. One man is a fool and other is one worthy to stand beside… it just depends on what side you are on, perhaps. Just do what you think is right – and I know you are a pretty good judge of that. I agree with the balance. For me, I always wondered why people were so threatened by difference. For me, it is a secret to discover and a mystery to unfold… I find people with different accents, different ways, different beliefs rather fascinating. I can’t say how sad I am that many do not see it that way and feel more comfortable around “their own kind.” Oh, and you’re not getting lost in your own thoughts at all… you are making perfect sense!
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I think this is part of the central struggle in the world today, is for people to be interested and loving towards cultures, religions and ideas that are different to their own, and to accept change, and to understand what turning their backs on this means to the future of the world. I think in a way people are scared of being seen as being in some way “insufficient”, and the easiest way to seem “in” is to blindly carry on traditions, and deflect people’s looking to closely at them, by showing how terrible other people’s, religions etc. are. I think the world runs more and more on fear, than on love, and that is what has to change.
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So sorry I never responded. What the heck happened to my comments! I have not seen these. Now I’m starting to feel bad! I have to agree with you. We need to look outside of ourselves as well as see how we fit into the whole of things. I think many fear being “less than” and in that fear they either bully others as “less than” or they whither away their own abilities, for fear that they will be proven right. Incredibly sad that education does not actually educate us to value ourselves and our gifts… and to help us find a way to see how our gifts can be used for the benefits of others, as well as ourselves.
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Yes, this should really be a big part of education, what is the use of knowledge, if one cant use it in a useful way. I used to run creative writing and creativity classes, as part of what the library offered in their outreach program, and for friends over the weekends. I very soon found that actually most of the people who came, had great imaginations, and used them well, writing and creating wonderful work; what they lacked was the ability to see and realise these gifts of theirs, and that is what I used to help them with, rather than the write or art, after a few weeks they would venture out and start publishing and doing readings in public. It was great to be able to help them.
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I seriously wish we had this available here. It sounds like an amazing opportunity. Are they still doing that or has it ended? Must be a wonderful experience, spending time with like-minded individuals and celebrating creativity! I seriously wish this was taught in ever darn school and on every street corner. We are so sorely in need of this!
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At the moment I no longer do it, as the shop takes up all my time, and what little is left I divide between my wife Genevieve, my blog and sleeping. I think to a certain extent things like this are happening all over the world, but normally you have to pay for them, where as I did it for free, as a library outreach program. I know that in Britain, because of labour laws, you are not allowed to do projects like this for free ( how Governments can interfere with life!). When I retire in a few years time, i will probably go back to doing this, but doubt if I could afford to do it for free any more.
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