Bad Places and How To Make Them Better

It's been raining a lot. Until a few days ago, I swear I hadn't seen the sun in two weeks. We've had flash flood warnings, closed roads, and a spontaneous lake instead of the park by my house.

There are those people who love storms and thunder and pouring rain, but I am not among them. I think rain, which we get a lot of in the winter, is the worst kind of weather there is.

On a similar note, my high school is maybe the most disgusting place I've ever been. I don't know if the general teenage population just doesn't know what a trash can is? Do they just not care? Despite the administration's efforts to decorate, I never considered it a beautiful place.

Actual footage of Lanie's high school.

My journalism class did a unit on photography this semester. We started by looking at other people's photos and thinking about what they did well. My teacher taught us a lot of tricks that I hadn't thought about before. Then we went out to wander the school and take those kinds of good pictures. It seemed weird to me at first. Only gray tile, gray lockers, trash cans, and my classmates? What would I get out of that?
(On a more humorous note, I think at least one person took a picture of a trash can and labeled it "school spirit.")

 

As photographers, my teacher taught us that eye level wasn't always the best angle to see things. In the same way, as I was squinting at the school through the lens of my camera, I started to notice things that were beautiful. Maybe not in the same way that watching the sun rise from a mountain is breathtakingly beautiful, but at least worthy of a smile.

 
The world becomes a thousand times more beautiful when you start looking at the little things.

Please appreciate that I was leaning precariously off of a deck with no railing while I took this and somehow survived.

When I ventured out to take pictures a few days ago, it was raining softly, but it was warm and not so bad. The water had started to down. As I looked at the murky gray floodwater, I started to notice reflections, hints of sky peeking through the clouds, clovers struggling to survive in the mud. Things you could step on and never notice.

Maybe I was in an exceptionally good mood, maybe it was the water, or maybe it was the camera in my hand, but those little clovers took my breath away. When I started looking somewhere other than eye level, I found things that I wouldn't have otherwise.

You don't have to like the rain to think it's beautiful, and even if your school is as disgusting as mine is, maybe it really isn't so bad. Wherever you are, there is something worth admiring.

I guess what I'm saying is find the rainbow in the rain, and if it isn't there, admire the gray clouds instead.