THE SNOW FALL
I knew what was going to happen and I knew I had a narrow window.
My intention was to go to my favorite park. I felt like I was being called to photograph trees.
I had woken up to 6 fresh inches of snow, hanging heavily on the trees and deep, deep blue skies. The contrast was breath taking. I knew the wind would pick up soon and blow the snow off the limbs, so I had to get to my destination asap.
I drove towards the park. I got visually distracted and henceforth never made it to the park. I was ok with that. I trusted that I would be brought to where I needed to be. No one was on the roads, people still asleep in their homes. I was living in the iconoclastic New England town. The churches stopped me in my tracks. I parked and said to myself “I will take a few photographs and then move on.” I was clicking away without intention, so caught up in the moment, the feeling, the beauty. I had to reset myself and look around to see what drew me to be here.
There it was, the cemetery, the trees laden with snow and the contrasting deep blue sky. The wind starting to build and I witnessed the 6 inch snowfall blowing, swirling, dancing off of the trees like a sandstorm in the sky. It took my breath away.
I centered myself and began to make photographs with intention, I could literally feel the dance I was witnessing, felt nature’s expression. I felt like I was on a film set where magic was happening around me. I was totally in the moment, dancing with the snow. I photographed and had this enlightened experience. Then as quickly as it started the wind stopped, things became still and the light changed.
The virgin landscape after a snowfall, the gravestones abstractly casting shadows. Peaceful chaos. Nature is chaos, when I photograph I organize chaos with my composition. The trees were speaking to me and I knew that I had reached a place in my life where I can feel all of my feelings, trust my process and make music with my photographs. I felt such a high, so guided, alone, yet a part of a bigger whole. I felt a time warp. Time stood still.
“Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky”
Kahill Gibran
