365 day photo challenge: Day 2 Embers

Today was a day of getting work done. I created a storefront on Etsy-selling Nature Christmas ornaments, stopped by some prospective clients and worked out at the gym. It was a very gray overcast day but as it got colder and windier the sun made an appearance.

When you get involved in daily tasks you can forget that the day and light is quickly burning away outside. After all the birds had eaten their fill and gone to their nightly perches I ventured out for one last attempt at getting a shot. It’s only day 2-I plan on accomplishing this challenge and so far I’m really loving it.

So what do you shoot as the sun is fading behind the clouds, no bits of last light, no remnant of the electric hour but instead a flash and an isolated subject. I shot the cottonwood leaves at the peak of their crimson display.

I call it embers because that’s what it looks like, the embers of autumn. A final flaming display, I liked the delicate stems and the tinges of crimson. So Day 2 of the challenge: my goal is to make time, take a moment and realize something that is out there waiting to be discovered.

Light is what we study
it reaches across a landscape
and changes our perspective,

it bounces off the wings of some blue birds
and brings us indigo, cyan, aqua
it captures a droplet with just a tiny speckle

It is the skeleton behind everything we see
it is how the brain realizes forms
it makes the ordinary extraordinary

It brings us color at its purest
most beautiful form
it is the awe of a sunset
and the waking of the senses
in a brand new day
it shows the soul in the eyes
of a child
and in the  final hours
it fades
it is the richness and beauty of butterflies
and the allure of flowers, infrared and sweet viridian

We study light
through the blues of early spring
the grays of winter
and in autumn the embers
it is the ghost, a gift
we sadly forget, but always remember…