I went outside this week for a breath of fresh air and to capture the beauty of this rare Nashville Winter Wonderland. These days I rarely slow down to take photos for myself– this reminded me of how important it is to do just that.
From grade school to high school I figured skated competitively. There were these shirts skaters wore with trite sayings most of which could probably be altered and put on a shirt for any other sport you could name. One of shirts that stood out to me particularly said, “Everything I need to know about life, I learned from Skating.” It went on to list a bunch of life lessons that skating could teach you. This idea of connectedness, gleaning something from one area of life and applying it to another has always stuck out to me. I carried this idea into college, where I studied Art and was constantly making connections between art and life, particularly in regards to patience and process vs. product.

This week while photographing the iced branches and leaves outside, I couldn’t help but focus on the importance of perspective. Moving slightly to the left, zooming in, zooming out, changing the focus of my lens to something new — by doing any of these things differently, I could capture a multitude of very different moments, all while photographing the same subject. Its so thrilling to be able to “see” the same object in so many different ways. And suddenly, it struck me that in my own life, I am usually not as excited to view an issue from multiple perspectives. But, why wouldn’t I? When photographing something, it can look horribly dull when standing in one spot, but walk around the subject, find an interesting angle, zoom in so that the light fills the frame and BOOM — dull changed to breathe taking. Sometimes, I get overwhelmed with all I have to do. Its easy to get caught up in the mess of busy and forget to slow down to change my focus to appreciate the beauty in the details and in the big picture. If God’s creation in nature can be beautiful in so many different perspectives and focuses, why couldn’t His creation of my life be as well? So, here is to finding joy in the many things I can choose to focus on in Life 😉

Okay, so there is the end of my cheesy rant.

Please enjoy  the images below! And keep in mind, many images are of the same thing, just a different focus/perspective — isn’t that cool!

Can I just say that I love this last photo because it just re-enforces that idea that everything is connected.
I will end the rare personal post with an a quote I think is appropriate:

“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”

Perspective, y’all. 😉