I'm sitting at my desk looking out at a fairly dreary landscape. It's cold and bleak outside -- the sun is trying to come out but not quite making it. The leaves have fallen off the tree outside my window -- it was very windy a day or two ago -- and all that remains are some dried-up, brown seed bundles clinging to equally brown, bare branches.
As the brilliant colors of autumn start to fade, we're heading into a a time of year that I would not normally think of as being beautiful. But thanks to the images posted on Gather, I've started to look for beauty in my world that I never would have seen before.
I recently posted some photos of combines stripping our flat fields bare of dry soybeans. I was overwhelmed by the comments fascinated with farming and the barren-looking landscape -- so different than their own, one said. Although I grew up on a farm in southern Minnesota and northern Iowa, I lived for 3 years in Chicago, 3 in Augsburg, Germany, and 12 in Colorado Springs, Colorado before moving home 16 years ago. It has been an adjustment -- and I must confess that whenever we have the time and money, we like to slip away to someplace in the world that is beautiful to enjoy the scenery.
A photo I took in Scotland that I could have taken right outside my door, but never would have until I joined Gather and started seeing beauty in my own front yard.
Earlier this week, when we were driving a few miles from home, we rounded a corner and saw a group of sheep huddled on a hillside. I turned to my husband and said, "If we were still on vacation in Scotland, we'd have stopped to take a photo." Seeing someone else's part of the world can renew your appreciation for your own. Seeing your world through someone else's eyes can renew one's perspective and make you notice all kinds of lovely things.
It is so easy to forget that our little corner of the world is not the center of the universe, and so nice to be reminded that everyplace doesn't have a traditional fall like we have in the Midwest. It's so easy to take our own world's beauty for granted, and nice to reminded, through someone else's eyes, that it is special, and yes, beautiful, in its own unique way.
Just curious...
Is there anything in your world that you've started to appreciate more because of a photo of someplace else that you've seen on Gather?
Is there a part of the world you've put on you list of places you must see because of a photo you've seen on Gather?
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Comments: 31
Excellent article!
Thank you for posting your article to !!!Today's Top Three Photos and Articles!!!@
http://bestoftoday.gather.com/
I have really enjoyed photos of far -flung places like Tibet and China, from Gather photographers.
And now I may have to re-think eliminating receiving images from Gather. I was getting kind of overwhelmed with them. Maybe it's time for another blast of photos and images!
Mary Mc
As far as places I'd like to see, usually pictures of the beach from anywhere inspire me. I'd love to see Europe and Australia and the Carribean some day. I'd love to see lighthouses around the USA and of course beaches anywhere!
Yes, the wonderful way the Internet connects us to friends we might never have met otherwise and how it allows us to see the beauty of the world through their eyes
"Is there a part of the world you've put on you list of places you must see because of a photo you've seen on Gather?" Gosh, several.... but they may have already been on my Someday list. There are Loads of places I'd go if Someday I had the money lol
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U
I wrote about this too. It was my first article on gather. You can check it out here.
: )
He has done an absolute champ of a job of getting me the right equipment to work with, and it seems as though I can't go anywhere without stopping and taking pictures now. I thought I was really observant before, but it has really opened my eyes, and of course Gather has provided me a place to showcase my work and to get a variety of opinions on it.