I have written about Descansos in a previous entry back in May and used an iPhone image of this same one in that discussion. It is out near Ragland and captures my thoughts in many ways each time I pass by. It has been woven into the fence line along the highway, a memorial to someone who impacted other lives in ways that warranted a remembrance. They have now moved on to the next step in their journey through the cosmos and those staying behind for now are bidding them fair winds.
This past Sunday the storms passing through our area beckoned me out to explore with my camera. I knew I was nearing this location, but it was raining so hard that I had to slow and look closely to make sure I didn’t drive by. The rain was blowing straight at the car, and I couldn’t get out or roll the window down. The hawk sitting guard and the rain rolling down the window each added elements to the feeling of the moment that just needed to be captured. So I pressed my lens to the window and fired away. Only minutes after I got a few shots it started hailing and Mr. Hawk decided that it was time to move on to a safer perch.
Now my friend, photographer Nathan McCreery, is known to admonish his students against taking photographs through the window of the car while driving down the road, but hopefully he will agree that this moment was one to break the rules. There really are no hard and fast rules though in my estimation. Guidelines to be considered maybe, and then follow the track that leads to the expression that prompted you to begin with. Hey, at least I wasn’t running down the road at 60 miles an hour!
This is yet another example of what I was discussing a week ago about happy discoveries. You follow the urging of your muse and keep yourself open to what you are going to be presented with. When I started out this day I was already mapping out a route that would take me by this Descanso again. I have many images in my head that have worked well in the past that I like to revisit in different light for new expressions. I could have been disappointed that it was raining so hard as I was coming up on the location and just driven on by, but then I would have missed out on what I consider to be a really expressive image. This 1/60 of a second would have been gone forever.
“A photograph can be an instant of life captured for eternity that will never cease looking back at you.” — Brigitte Bardot
(Originally published July 1, 2016)