Schooley's Mountain, NJ
Listening to:
Thrice discography
"Plans" album by
Death Cab For Cutie
"I want to live where soul meets body
And let the sun wrap its arms around me and
Bathe my skin in water cool and cleansing
And feel what it's like to be new.
'Cause in my head there's a Greyhound station
where I send my thoughts to far off destinations
so they may have a chance of finding a place where they're
far more suited than here."
Death Cab For Cutie
Recently, I've found myself out and about exploring more which has led me with my camera in hand to dig back into my roots creatively. There's so much freedom in not having to worry about anything, but to capture images with whatever is there in front of me. To find ways to work with whatever is given to me. It's all been a whole different experience that I've fallen away from. It's given me peace of mind and a way to enjoy time without much else but nature to enjoy.
As I started to go through all of the recent images that I've captured, I couldn't get the song, "See you in the shallows," by thrice out of my head. Especially the line, "The water here is far to blue." It didn't mean much, but it stirred something in me when I started to see that I didn't and then couldn't remember the last time I shot any sort of 'real' and 'true' landscape photo. All the stuff you see all over social media that others are doing that seem to stand alone, just a beautiful and bright scene that would make anyone want to jump into a plane or car and go see in real life. And the more I kept wondering if these photos were real, the more that line rang around my mind.
Then... Some bunch of days later, I found myself listening to Death Cab For Cutie's album "Plans" I was feeling every line... Every note... Feeling music in a way that I feel like I haven't much enjoyed in it recently. I started looking through these photos again. I started feeling the peace that I felt standing above and sitting next to the rushing waters, climbing the rocks and sitting in the snow without feeling the cold. And it hit me: it doesn't matter how I go about getting the images or if I'm following any sort of given rules. But, the simple fact of it, it's that I don't look for your normal scenes or try to capture these images how others would; but, I'm really searching for the small things around me that portray small extensions of my soul. If I feel like I'm capturing that, than that's all that really matters. They're beauty and darkness will stand on their own. The true nature of things that are often overlooked.
"I hear the waves crash far below;
The rocks are leaping for the sky
They're starving for the air, for a bone to break,
A dream to smash apart, but I don't care
It looks deep enough from here, I'm diving
The water here is far to blue..."
-Thrice
