Rivers of Life

I stood upon the Orange Hill Cemetery, beside my fathers grave, in a driving rain storm. Below me, flowing downhill, the middle road through the monuments became for a brief moment, a flowing river. And soon, the storm moved on toward the sand hills over Gulf Hammock and on out over the Gulf. Wet from the waist down, I walked with the flowing water down to the intersection where Melanies family members rest. I brushed the wet, newly mowed grass from their graves, pulled a few weeds, righted the vases blown over.
It was a quiet gesture. Soon the sun appeared and the river turned to road again. The clouds gave way to a clean blue. The memory of the river remained. The few slabs of those I once knew could again reflect the evening light.

As artists we are often desperately in need of recognition. We are gregarious types in our shy, reclusive natures, in conflict with the need to share our visions and at the same time, our hesitancy to reveal our inner visions, wanting to protect them. Some are not as timid, and throw it out for all, come what may, hardened ones, confident ones.

When I showed this photograph to one, pulling it up, my enthusiasm in no way matched his lack of. It was just another look and move on, another ho hum moment. One who would never consider getting out of the car in a cemetery in a storm with an umbrella and walking the entire length, enthralled with it all.

I just could not convey that. It was just a photograph that was not that special. What was I to do? Upbraid him for his lack of interest in walking with the dead beside rivers soon to disappear? A certain pity on my part, for me, for him, that I was 'this way', that he and most of whom I move and breathe with are, 'that way', an oddity among the normality, trying quietly to fit in, to sit in vehicles when rains come.

Beneath blue heaven

The last few evenings have been full of lightening and thunder and rain. Dramatic heavens. I have been for the most part unsuccessful in capturing lightening like I envision it. Long dramatic streaks. I try and anticipate and count between flashes, but miss every time. I try long exposures, but if too long, it wipes out the streaks. This was taken with the Canon S110 at 15 seconds on the limit of its exposure, since the idiotic Canon technicians put a limit on the ISO for long exposures, limiting it to ISO80, effectively negating properly exposed long exposures. The S95, which died, did not have this limit.
Some photographers use a lightening trigger that detects motion and trips the shutter. Perhaps I need one.
Nevertheless, it has been interesting, if not for anything, but to be out watching the awesome display of God's power. A power that caused the opening Gator Game in Gainesville to be cancelled.