How Do You Capture Rapture?

 Just Another Street Scene in Asheville, North Carolina

Click for ENLARGED view.

I can never capture the moment quite the way it happened. A lot of it has to do with my technical and artistic limitations as a photographer. heck, I should not even be calling myself that, but most of all it is because one can never capture time. I try. This photo looks just like a street downhill but that is not what it was to me. 

I was walking with my family to a restaurant somewhere in Asheville, North Carolina one summer day. We crossed the street, busily talking with one another when I saw something from the corner of my eye. I already noticed the silvery flecks of light reflected by the clouds from the parking lot earlier. What I did not notice was in another part of the city, the clouds were gathering and thickening. It is was difficult to appreciate the sky as they were obscured by buildings and trees. 

When we crossed the street where the intersection was sloping downhill, I saw the blanket of gray rolling. My daughter lovingly admonished me in a nurturing way for standing in the middle of the street as I captured this view. My my son stood guard beside me ready to grab me away from an oncoming vehicle.  My husband tolerates all of these and patiently waited. My family is used to my eccentricities. Photographing trees, clouds, leaves wherever we go and carrying a drawing board. It feels rather nice to be free to do these things and being accommodated by my company. Sometimes they call my attention; "Look Mom! Look at the clouds (or trees)!

Not quite the way I saw it but there it is. Just another street scene but it plays differently in my mind. Look around you. You might see something and keep it in your mind.

"Enlarged" - I love that term. My father had a photograph enlarger in his darkroom. I still remember the smell of acid fixers and how cold the whole room was, almost air-conditioned..

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