What do you see?? Season of Change

 Asking myself…”What do you see?”. This occurs to me in day to day life as well as when I am out taking photographs often on my impromptu and unexpected locations. There are so many opportunities in my life to choose how we see things…especially the little things!

The following is a photo journey from one of my recent impromptu trips. I wanted to go someplace different to photograph the fall colors and my mom suggested we “take a drive”. She drove so I wasn’t sure where we were going…what a lovely surprise when we began driving to somewhere I’d never been!! With my sweet Lil’ Miss in tow we drove about an hour away from our home.

The scenery was a mountain road filled with curves, steep inclines, rocky cliffs, gorgeous views clearly full of life and the arrival of fall. The colors only God can make were full of vibrancy and the promise that as with life all things have a season. The colors of the spring and summer all lovely and green showing the new growth are now darkening in some cases to rich and warm shades of red and maroon, in others it’s the amber and yellow shades of that infamous “Aspen Gold” we affectionately call it here in CO.

The senses collide for me as a photographer during the few weeks of peak for the “Season of Change”.

• Seeing the beauty in the changes of the seasons, like the leaves are curling and slowly dying in anticipation of the coming winter, there’s also the reality in that with life there is death yet also with death the promise and the hope that come the spring providing a harsh and late freeze does not happen, there will again be new growth, new life and new fruits in the new seasons ahead.

  

• Taking in the smell as I walk through the brush-like shores of a small creek, Feeling the unmistakable crunch of the fallen leaves beneath my feet as they lay on the ground ready to be reabsorbed into the Earth for richer soil in the coming seasons, I’m taken back to childhood memories made by making the biggest pile of leaves possible to jump into and being consumed by the scents and sounds of fall.

  

• Listening to the calming sound of the cascading waters down the falls as it pours over the rocks into the calm pool and eventually flowing into the creek below to provide water to those living below, it’s a sound of life and survival.

  

This unidentified plant was a beautiful example of the Season of Change. As a family we viewed it together as 3 generations. I saw the beauty of the opportunity to photograph the season of change in this “flower” (not sure of the species flower/weed it came from a bush), my mom said “we need one for Lil’ Miss to keep” & my sweet girl said “Oh look Mommy it’s a Wish Flower.”

Season of Change…What will you choose to see???

I will choose to see the Season of Change as an ever-growing, ever-changing and ever-pleasing opportunity to look at life through my daughter’s eyes…seeing a Wish Flower and most certainly NOT a weed.