Shaking off the Stagnant Energy
I’ve been working a lot lately (thank goodness) at home – attending to writing assignments and researching. I love research, but it’s not really something that requires a lot of movement and I was starting to get “stuck” both physically and mentally. I needed to take a break.
The air and the energy in your place needs to get cleansed, cleaned out and purged of even your own energy every once in a while. Opening the windows, pulling up the shades and clearing up clutter helps, but sometimes you just need to escape and get out to clear your own energy. As soon as I left my place, I felt the cool breeze blowing through the warm air. It made me smile. I was just going to take a ride to clear my head and take in some relaxing scenery.
We were promised terribly strong thunderstorms and wild weather, but as usual, the threat was more than delivered. The sky looked ominous, but it kind of felt nice – not too hot in the Carolina Sun and that lovely cool breeze. I haven’t gotten out with my camera in a long time, so armed and ready to ride I decided to delve back into one of my favorite forms of picture taking, the drive-by shooting. I love doing drive-bys and if you ask me, this is the only type of drive-by shootings that should ever exist. More than taking them I love coming home and popping the card into my laptop and seeing what I’ve captured. Here’s the result of my short break yesterday. It really made me feel so much better to just get out, and, as you’ll see, not everyone buys into the weather forecast all the time.
Perhaps it’s a myth that cows lay down in a circle when it’s going to rain, but I have seen it before. Not these cows though. They seem to think like me – the weather report had been greatly exaggerated. Weather does seem to either target us solely or, as in most cases, wrap right around us, leaving us untouched for the most part. The maintenance man who showed up at my apartment later on this day said his friend is convinced that weather misses us so often because of the nuclear plant nearby. A weird theory, but who am I to say it’s wrong? I haven’t come up with a better explanation. It did rain later this day but it was a short sprinkle – nothing you’d expect from cloud cover like this.
There is tons of wisteria growing along the roads right now. I would love to have stopped to photograph some of it, but every time I found something to shoot, I’d find a car behind me. Just as well, I did have to get back to work eventually, so I did have to keep it moving.
One of the wonders of “drive-by shootings” is how the background always seems to be so in-focus and the objects closest seem to blur. [click here for a great example] It’s probably due to some mathematical equation having to do with speed, trajectory, etc. but I failed math – I just like taking pictures and I love the way these drive-bys turn out. This is my therapy that gives me great peace and clarity in such a short time. I took all of these by driving around in less time than a typical lunch break, and I felt so refreshed afterwards.
Above is one of my favorite watering holes to drive-by. Usually there are horses out, walking around, drinking from the pond and generally just grazing the day away. Next time they’re out, I’ll share them with you. There’s one particular horse, an all-white horse, that loves to stare at me. I usually stop and say hello, but I never overstay my welcome. They like their peace.
Remember this spot? I shot it once a long time ago in black and white. It’s still there, obviously, so this time I decided to add it to my “drive-by gallery.”
Thanks for taking a ride with me, and if you’re ever in need of a quick break, try your hand at this form of photography. The trick is to keep your eyes on the road, hold up the camera and just point and shoot. That’s the beauty of it – you never really know what you’ve captured until you stop and take a look.
LJ Innes' Photo Blog 