We're on stage 6 now and they've just increased the range to include the possibility of stages 7 and 8. Fun times ahead.
It's weird to eat breakfast at 4:45 in the morning unless you're used to that kind of thing. I generally don't eat breakfast at all, but yesterday I did. Change is good and I've realised that my ability to bend with these unfortunate changes without entirely snapping a blood vessel in my brain is actually commendable and I'm proud of it. Adapt or die.
Yesterday during a 4hr long stint of electricity gone bye-bye, I had used up my laptop battery and my phone battery too. I'm not equipped with all the gadgetry to charge anything by solar so I decided that I'd call it my lunch hour and I took my DSLR outside for a date. We had a bit of a leg stretch together and to let my mind do something other than freaking out about what I now couldn't get done until someone flipped the switch back on.
It was late afternoon and the shadows stretched out like a cat when they first wake in the morning, all slinky like.
The first few many shots I took aren't here. Blur. Blur. Blur. FFS stop shaking. Why are you shaking? Breathe. In. Out. Adjust your footing. Focus. About forty shots later, there was a visible difference and I wasn't erasing almost every photo I took. I eased into my subject matter more and more, lay back on the grass to snap a stink bug or pea flower, my mind distracted by the beauty of the contrast ... it stopped nattering at me.
There were things that I so often overlook. The little Dr Suess puff balls that seem like the perfect chair for a Who. I listened but I didn't hear any Whos down in Whoville.
These are simply images of things that I found around the garden. There is nothing particularly noteworthy about any of them other than the fact that they ARE. Captured moments of contrast.
There were interactions that I watched in amusement between geckos chasing each other up down and all around the picket fence posts. Little paper wasps doing a funky kind of dance where they would touch each fence post tip with their toes as if using them as stepping stones, then alight once more into flight. "Ooh wait, what's that? Another waspy coming my way? Who are you? What you up to in my neck of the woods? Hey wait, come back here! I'm gonna come with you"....Bzzzz and away they went. Silently I immersed myself in this little world of nothing particularly noteworthy outside. But activity everywhere if you take the time to observe. The world still continues. The shadows still move. The moss still sends up flowers. The dew still falls.
I felt like I was witnessing something transformative. Perhaps I'm just going mad, that could very well be the case too, but whatever it was, it FELT. It felt wholesome, like I was within and encapsulated, welcomed, a part of the wasp dance.
All images are my own. Camera: Canon 60D with Sigma combo 70-200 Standard 200-300mm Macro lens 1:4-5.6; + Hoya linear polarising filter
