Orange Clouds and
Blood-Red Sunsets
Janet Kuypers
6/15/19, on Nature
Photography Day
My years of photography schooling in college
was designed to prep me for photo journalism;
catching the action for the big reported story...
with that camera as an extension of my right arm,
I’d be really at a moment’s notice to swing that
camera up to my eye when the time was right.
And I may be no Ansel Adams, recording wind
speeds and altitudes and longitudes for photos,
but with this catching the moment mentality
ingrained in my head, I stumble upon nature scenes
I now have to share with the world. It’s on impulse,
but when you see something so breath-taking
your only thought is to share it with the world.
Dormant trees laden with snow at a creek at an
overpass, reflecting the cloud-filled sky. Or orange
clouds, creating a one-of-a-kind mystery in the sky
only you can decipher. Then catch the sun through
clouds on a rainy day — or in a blood-red sunset
over lake Pontchartrain — or catch that instant
the sun peeks out, seconds after a total solar eclipse.
See the sun setting from fifty thousand feet in the air
and capture the divide between day and night from
on high. Catch bare footprint shadows in the snow.
Get on a boat to get to the water and capture
icebergs and glaciers, or all of the shards of ice, like
glass scattered in the water that make the sea look
like a crossword puzzle with pieces scattered about.
Find lone trails along mountainsides, or stop
when you see a massive field of giant sunflowers.
Don’t forget the pollenating bee you may see
on dying daisies, and go back to those intense
blue waters breaking at the shoreline. Wait,
what about that moss hanging from plantation
trees in the southern United States, that remind you
of the trees brimming with life at the Highlands,
or the bamboo forests in Puerto Rico. Because
from ice to snow, to lakes or ponds, that nature
is too so brimming with life, so journalist photographer,
stop looking for people for the action sometimes.
Nature has so much majestic, breath-taking, mind-
blowing action to share — and in an instant their
moment is gone too. And that is worth sharing.
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