Ellipsis: Beauty In The World... From The 2017 Archives

Sunday, November 19, 2017

Beauty In The World... From The 2017 Archives

"I believe all photographers want to be remembered for their images. They reflect a piece of their soul."

~Christer Paul Flateau

I was tiptoeing through my photo archive, from earlier this year, and since I did very little blogging in 2017, I decided to chose a few photos that I liked, but didn't feel up to blogging about on the day they were taken, and highlight them now. It's less than a week until Thanksgiving, and it's going to be a busy time, so I think it's the right time to take a look backward, with thankfulness, rather than bitterness, about how the year has been with Trump in office.

I let a lot of my creativity slide, instead choosing to be scared, angry and depressed. It's hard to not feel all this things, when even experts in various fields, like the American Psychiatric Association, have felt a duty to warn the American people about the dangers of having Trump in the White House. That was unprecedented, and should be taken seriously, however, the powers that be don't seem interested in removing him from office, so we are all stuck in a situation we, as individuals, have NO WAY to fix. It feels like we are all on a roller-coaster, running completely out of control! That is not a fun feeling, at all!

So, now I find myself quoting the Serenity Prayer to myself. I got that chip when I successfully graduated from Adult Daycare, after my nervous breakdown in 2000. It was a long, hard, painful road, but I worked through some things, and I was managing stress and occasional bouts of depression pretty well, again, until the Electoral Collage put an unstable man in power. After all those years, I found myself feeling things I hadn't felt in years, but when I recognized how bad it had gotten, I sought help, and I am beginning to come out of my almost self-imposed darkness.

I don't think, at the time I took these photos, I fully appreciated the beauty in them. I was taking photos, at Alan's request, because he was worried about me, and thought it would be good for me to do something other than dwell on all the bad things happening in America. It wasn't healthy to watch CNN 24/7, because, as he pointed out, there was nothing I could do to stop anything Trump does while in office. I needed to "accept the things I couldn't change." And I have, or at least I am trying my best to do just that!

This next week, I know that he will be pardoning a Thanksgiving turkey, per White House tradition, but he will probably use his power to pardon a few other turkeys as well, if you get my drift. I see it coming, but there is nothing I can do, so at least I am aware, that there is a strong possibility regarding pardons, and can deal with it by picking up my camera, and searching for the beauty in life. Oh don't get me wrong, I will feel all those emotions that are perfectly reasonable to feel, but hopefully, I will be able to balance the feelings with some creativity. That's my hope anyway.

So, lets look back at some beauty I didn't appreciate earlier this year, and we will go from there. I used some editing software on some of them, just to give you an idea what my imagination sees, rather then what the camera sees. Sometimes I see through an Impressionist filter in my creativity, and I try to bring that to my photographs, to let you get a better idea of how I see the world.