Why Rose-colored lenses?

Today’s log entry is brought to you by the letter K.*

While flipping through vacation photographs taken last month, I was struck by the expressions on my niece and nephew’s faces: excitement, wonder, elation, exhaustion. Before our trip, I had given each of them a camera for themselves. I wanted to see the trip through their eyes. What was important to them? What would it be like to look at the world from their level? What did they see that I might have missed? I wanted to see things from a different perspective, perhaps a better perspective, like viewing the world through rose-colored glasses.

This is what I wish to further develop in myself: the creative ability to see beyond the everyday norm; to challenge myself to look through the lens in a different way; to showcase the commonplace and bring it to life.

The road sign above is a vacation photo I snapped with my phone from the back seat on our trip to the airport. For some reason (and we won’t go into the weird way my brain works sometimes) I thought to myself, “hey, that sign looks like a letter K.” From there I decided, “wouldn’t it be ‘kewl’ (yes, I spent most of my formative years in the 90s, why do you ask?) if I could photograph a whole alphabet on vacation?!” Keen!

It was a great plan. The K is the only letter I got, of course, but still… it was a great plan! (Remember that issue of mine, where I don’t finish stuff… Right. Moving on.)

So this is my idea for audience participation: I want to leave you with a challenge. For the next week, try to view your normal routine with a new perspective and seek out photo opportunities** that you would be willing to share with everyone. Then, go ahead and post your favorite on your Facebook wall, linking back to this post. When you do, leave me a comment here and share the link to your photo so everyone can be inspired by your ideas.

I think this will be great fun if everyone participates; I hope we don’t have a bunch of killjoys.

*Raise your hand if you still love Sesame Street!

**Caveat (i.e. warning, caution, admonition, proviso, condition, stipulation, provision, clause, rider, qualification…): please don’t crash your car taking pictures of road signs—thank-you-very-much.