Eyes of the World

What to do when your wings are clipped during a season in life? Mine are this summer, and it’s so hard for someone who loves to go out and explore! Gas is expensive, the desert is unforgivingly HOT, but you want to travel and find some photographic inspiration!! I call it my 5-mile challenge, which I usually do several times throughout the year.

Not everyone can hike long distances, climb steep mountains, swim in exotic seas, or visit foreign countries. And I see/hear so many people explain that they let the photographers who can do these things be the eyes of the world. But does a true photographer have to really go to great lengths to find inspiration? Can’t we find inspiration anywhere in life?

Last Saturday the first hint of a monsoon rolled into town, and I was dying to get some photos of weather. Only desert dwellers understand the burning NEED to experience precipitation with all of our senses. To let the wind blow the heat away, feel the rain on your face, and listen to the thunder helps endure the miserable triple-digit days. So when I saw the thunderheads crawl across the horizon, I needed to get out there and find a way to shoot something, anything, besides cactus! I decided it was a good day for the 5-Mile Challenge.

I headed west to the mountains, but all I saw was cactus. I headed south and decided to drive up and down the old back roads of the desert neighborhoods before the subdivisions created miles of walled-off compounds of stucco and pavement. And this is what I found within 5 miles of my house:

and for those people who can’t get out of your house, just sit by the window. There’s more Eyes of the World out there, waiting to be introduced.

Looking for a Happy Meal from my backyard bird feeder…