A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

...or so they say.

Photography is one of the things that I am trying right now...for the moment. I have so much to learn about photography, even after this class I am currently taking. It parallels my own learning curve with myself.  Photography is so technical yet so artistic and beautiful. You can control so many elements in a picture but so much is out of your control. Capturing the moment seems so easy - you just point your camera at an object or a scene and push a button. But then the end result may not be what you expected it to be at all. It can be dull, flat, stoic, glossy-eyed even. Or it can be magical, expressive, shocking, honest. 

A great friend of mine once said that my pictures are really good, and that may be because while I continue to look ahead and search for what's coming, I'm capturing the moment I'm in. Because I tend to ignore today and try to find out what's coming tomorrow. Living in the moment has never been something I was remotely good at doing. Is it because I've never recognized the moment? Or because I didn't like the moment? Sometimes, I will go through a day and do so many things I hate doing, but I do them because they have to get or be done. I think to myself, "Okay. Do this today. Tomorrow will be different." But tomorrow was never really different because I never changed how I approached tomorrow. So I ended up with days, months, and years of "Okay. Do this today. Tomorrow will be different." I am starting to recognize that it's not the tomorrow that will be different. It is the today that I need to make different.

So, here's to living in the moment! And capturing the moment. And LIKING the moment. Okay, so it's not going to happen all at once - or every day - but I'll get there. Eventually. The opportunity is presenting itself in disguise, amid turmoil, change, and uncertainty. But it's there. I just have to grab it and not let go. 

So, Sunday - Halloween! - is my last photography class, and we are having an exhibit. Each student exhibits six pictures centered around a theme of our own choosing, something that we have been working on since the first class. Now, I have struggled with what my theme was going to be. I thought about steps, doors, windows. Water, food, subway stations. Nothing was working. I would choose a theme, then not be able to capture what I envisioned. But I eventually found something. And it was there from the beginning. My theme?

Escapes. Fire Escapes.