Light, reflections and perspectives

Most recently we have had a closely spaced series of storms pass though our area. By itself that has not been a bad thing as we can use the rain. However, due to the rain we dropped our usual plans of driving around to look at the various homes adorned with holiday lights. At our home I have a very simple array of colored lights strung up under eves of our garage. It's not much, but if feels festive.

Then one evening while I was dashing across our patio between the house and the garage, I noticed the reflections of the lights in the rain water flowing across the patio. Then I noticed the reflections of the lights in the water puddling up along side the garage. Inspired, I went back in the house to grab my camera and tripod.

The following are some of the images I captured using some very, very slow shutter speeds. By using the slow shutter speeds, this allowed the reflections of the light to twist and dance in various patterns while the shutter was open. I thought the effect was very interesting. After I uploaded the images from my camera, I took advantage of a little artistic license by pushing the saturation and contrast of the images.

 

  

 

  

 

A few days later, we were given a break from the rain. The day was mostly sunny, so Janet and I did a little stroll over to a little creek not far from our place. Once again I was inspired by the way the water and light interacted to produce some interesting, abstract images of reality.

 

  

 

 

 After taking the images of the clear water in the creek, we continued for a stroll up the top of the near by hill. Along the way I noticed some tiny droplets of water suspended from a spider web. By positioning my little point and shoot digital camera in just the right spot, I was able to pick up some of the prism effect of the sunlight in the droplets of water.

 See what I mean? This was just way too cool to pass up. To me this is what life is about. Finding and experiencing all the interesting things out there that living has to offer. Why? Because when it's over, it's over. Everything intangible becomes ethereal. All the memories, the humor, the love, the sadness, the good times and bad. All of that will no longer mean a thing. All those electrical impulses which is our memory will be gone and lost as little more than evaporation of quantum heat. Anything beyond that is only a story we make up to comfort ourselves for fear of the end. I freely accept what ever labels that philosophy brands me as because in the scheme of the universe the memories of one creature on a rock orbiting a star in the body of some average size galaxy in a universe full of galaxies does not add up to anything significant. The only thing that matters is now, because we live in the present.

I don't believe there is some cosmic energy watching over the universe making rulings of justice on every atom in every dimension making sure good triumphs over evil. Good and evil are purely human constructs. It is our choice to abide by those mores because we are judged only by our fellow beings and only by those in the present.