January 25, 2015: “Into the Woods”

What is life?  Why do we live?  What is our purpose?  There are so many existential and unsolvable questions.  The closest I can get to answers is when I run into the woods, when I run from manmade progress.  Progress has created a life easy to live with problems that do not exist. 

We have basic needs like all other animals for survival.  These basic needs for our survival are eating, sleeping and procreation.  We truly need nothing more, anything more is a luxury.  After all there are thousands of homeless.  They search for food and places to sleep.  Those are their only needs.  Those are the only needs I would like to have.  Instead I have a need for money to pay off debt for education, if it were to ever disappear I would walk into the woods and live with nature. 

Nature is beautiful, nature has no currency, nature has no debt, natural laws rule all.  On my walk today I saw an amazingly diverse set of trees some stood tall, some branched out, some were broken down, some were starting grow.  Each was unique, each was surviving a cold winter waiting to bloom in the spring.  Treading lightly is what we need to do, understand each other, understand our environment.  Walking into the woods I was freed from greed, freed from time, freed from rules.  I was free well unless I decided to sleep there or walk into woods someone “owned”.  Then I would be arrested. 

Into the woods there is only beauty.  Into the woods we can all be free.

January 9, 2015: “Windblown”

Watching the wind fiercely blow the snow

12 degrees, 20 mile per hour wind gusts, snow shooting everywhere. I begin to chase beauty, using the wind to my advantage, watching nature exert amazing strength on a wintry day.  Watching I slowly succumb to nature while trying to get an amazing shot.  Holed up trying to make it till sunset.  The wind keeps blowing, stopping with no rhyme or reason.  I am wearing 2 layers of pants, 3 layers of shirts, a facemask, wool socks, boots and gloves with fingertip holes.  I have to have complete control of my camera, the ability to change functions and capture the perfect shot.   After about 5 minutes the feeling is gone in my fingers. I look down the blowing snow is on my fingertips and sharp pain pierces though. 

An occasional break in the wind as the sun goes down

I had gotten a few shots but was unable to make it till sunset another 15 minutes.  I covered my fingers walked to my car.  The pain pierced like needles, I sat there the heat on waiting for the pain to go away.   At some point it did, I felt amazingly alive just the one fool to be outside trying to get something done create something for myself. 

Beautiful snow being blown

Capturing a snowfilled image means more to me than just the picture.  It is about this project and creating something new everyday, moving forward and following through.  I was windblown, cold an to some extent frozen yet it was the happiest I was all day.  Being outside is where I need to be whether cold or warm I need to be me.