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.
I guess what I'm saying is find the rainbow in the rain, and if it isn't there, admire the gray clouds instead.
High Schools tend to be rather nasty, since many students don't care too much, but those pictures you managed to take are pretty. And that rain looks rather yicky.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the rain wasn't great. The sun was out today, and I'm hoping it lasts. I don't get the trash thing at all though? Like if you don't want to go to school in a garbage hole, throw stuff away! But they never do. (Not everyone obviously, but too many people.)
DeleteOmg Lanie!! I love this post so much! There is something so amazing about finding beautiful things in something we don't normally believe is beautiful. I can relate to not liking rain. I think the combination of flooding and living in a place where it constantly floods plus it making me feel lazy has turned me off from it haha.
ReplyDeleteI was really missing the sun, so I decided to write something positive. It doesn't flood here often, and since we have 3 rivers in my town we have flood protections in place, so it doesn't cause massive amounts of damage even though a lot of the roads outside the city were closed.
DeleteThis was so positive! That rain was awful, and when I read this it cheered me up! (Sorry I commented so late, but I read it when you posted it)
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