No More Three-By-Fives

Hoping I would see the world with both my eyes

Seems like the drearier our Humboldt weather is, the more enthusiastically the interwebs explode when the sky is airbrushed with a glorious rainbow, jaw-dropping sunset or wondrous sunrise.  If you follow Twitter or Facebook or Instagram, your feed is painted the fanciful shades of a blue-gray sky brushed by the sun with pinks and oranges.  Whether with the ubiquitous smart phone or a billion-dollar DSLR, we struggle to get THE photo, the one everyone sees and “sighs…” and shares with the rest of the digital universe.  But sometimes I just can’t get THE photo.

The fabulous sunrises we have been blessed with this season, while visible and awe-inspiring, are impossible to commit to digital “film” from my house without the web of powerlines that cross the sky.  Try as I might to use those black lines in an artistic way, they just undermine all of my efforts to record the perfect sky. The houses don’t darken enough to be the perfect silhouettes.  I pull off at the Humboldt Hill vista point to catch the view on the way to work, but the sun’s effect was hidden behind the trees.  I pulled to the rear of the parking lot at South Bay Elementary School south of town but, by then, the sun has climbed beyond a point where the clouds were the fiery orange they had been just fifteen minutes before.   

Today I finally overcame

Trying to fit the world inside a picture frame

Well, I probably didn’t really OVERCOME the urge, but have come to the realization that sometimes I need to just stop.  And enjoy.  Without the camera…..and, like this John Mayer song, trying to enjoy it with BOTH my eyes.  

Oh, it won’t be easy.  I’ll still dodge through traffic after work, trying desperately to get to the perfect spot to photograph that stunning sunset I can see from the highway during my evening commute.  Or I’ll text the boss from the ‘T’ on the north spit, to let him know I’ll be a bit late while I try and capture the red rubber ball of a moon as it sets in the morning.  But sometimes, when those things don’t look promising, I will just sit and enjoy those few fabulous moments.  With both my eyes.