Learning to See

I may be in love with winter and all her glory, but I also have a thing for the way the sun creeps in through the windows during the Spring, leaving long shadows in her wake. One magical thing about photography is that it teaches you how to see the world around you. Have you ever noticed the different colors of sunlight? Often times it's white, and sometimes it's yellow, but other times it's deep orange or red, or maybe it's pink. Sometimes, in the winter, the light is blue. And early in the morning and right before the sun sets in the evening, the light is honey colored. I never noticed the light before I became a photographer. It was just something to see by, not something to look at. But now I notice it everywhere I go. I notice the sun's rays peeping in through windows and laying across our hardwood floors. I notice it making silhouettes of the trees during my evening drive from work. I notice it dancing across the lakes that surround us. I notice it getting caught in the puddles after rain, or in glass pitchers, reflecting back at me. I actually see the beautiful rosy glow the setting sun gives to the fields, and the always yellowed tint that our lightbulbs cast on us.  I see and look at the world around me in so much more detail now than I did only a few years ago. Photography has a lot going for it already: it's fun, it can be done by anyone, it captures a sliver of time that will never return, and the images it produces can be gorgeous works of art or happy memories of the past. But one of the most wonderful things about it, that I didn't understand when I first picked it up, is that a photographer actually sees the beauty around him instead of looking past it. A photographer notices the little details of life, and appreciates them. When I first held my camera in my hands and snapped a photo I had no idea how it would change my view of the world. How thankful I am that it did! So yes, I love winter with all my heart, but my dear Watson (ahem did I ever tell you that this is my camera's name?) has taught me to see the beauty in the coming season of Spring.