I always find myself in a rut during winter. Since this is a photography blog, I of course am speaking in the photography sense, although I do feel the endless drag of winter at a certain point during it’s course. This winter was no exception. However in my non-photographer part of my life, I really tried to focus on embracing winter in all it’s glory. The darkness, the cold, the beauty, etc. ‘Hygge‘ is an up and coming term for this embracing, and I tried to take it to heart. Ancient wisdom states that winter is supposed to be for ‘cozying’ up, staying still, ‘hibernating’. So maybe it’s OK that I take a step back from photography during this season. Maybe it’s not. But the reality still comes back to finding myself in a rut. Uninspired. Lack of motivation to venture out.
As the equinox comes around (March 20 – also the meteorological start of spring), signs of spring are popping up everywhere you look. Slowly, new life takes form in a variety of different ways. As this happens, I find it not a coincidence that I start to get the itch to stretch out and venture outside. Spring is a time of renewal, and I find myself viewing nature with a set of fresh eyes and longing.
These pictures come from
Banning State Park in Minnesota. It was one of my first outings of the new season this past March, and I was desperate to find something, anything that screamed ‘spring’. Although it was a cloudy day, I was amazed by how much color was surrounding me as I hiked. The following signs aren’t the traditional signs of spring; tulips and daffodils poking through the ground, buds ripening on trees. These signs were pure color. After a long winter of looking at white and brown, the color was the breath of fresh spring air that I needed to feel rejuvenated, refreshed, and renewed after a long winter. The breathe I needed to get me out of my rut.
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