Capturing Beauty

I've never been a huge picture taker, I'd go on tangents now and then when I realized that I hadn't taken many in a long time. I'd chide myself when I'd fail to capture the beauty around me, or I didn't have a pic of my friends, so here in Jamaica I've tried to be on top of the picture thing as my AA battery habit can attest to.

I lived in Colorado for 3 years prior to coming to Jamaica and yet somehow, despite falling in love with her and exploring all over her mountains, I never quite stopped to realize all the beauty that I couldn't capture with my camera. This odd realization only came upon me here in Jamaica, at a greenhouse when I noticed butterflies in a way I'd never seen them before.

I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, as my counterpart and a greenhouse farmer were discussing calcium deficiency in tomato plants; the momvent was a flock(?) of white and yellow butterflies, dozens of them, flying about the roadway. On a normal day this would be a beautiful sight, something you could catch with your camera and show your friends, but this was also something else; because of the wind and the numbers and, (no doubt) forces I don't comprehend, the little beasties were swirling around like a gossamer tornado. They moved almost too fast for my eyes to follow, much less my old Olympus 4mp camera to capture. I lowerd the screen from my face and just watched, enthralled by the beauty of the dance.

This was a moment in time and unique for me alone, since nobody else there seemed to take notice or care. I was there to bear witness to this mini cyclone of butterflies and then the moment was gone forever. I wish others had been there and had seen it, because words can't describe the scene with true justice and I just couldn't capture it on my camera.

This moment made me reflect on other times I found myself in the same position; moments in time where something amazing happened and I had been lucky enough to see it.

In the nature park with Jeannine and Hobbes the Wonderdog; I look up and (almost out of sight) see flashes of silver glinting in the sun...my mind boggles as I watch because, what I'm seeing LOOKS like a school of fish swimming in the ocean, but in reality had to have been some kind of birds, because the blue they swam in was the Illinois sky. I never saw the like again, and yet I can close my eyes and recall it vividly.

So while amazing photographers like Josh Hunter and Becky Mobley may capture 1000 words worth of inspired photos, my brain still holds the captured beauty of things uncapturable by machines alone.