More winter whites

I like this photo, with the big pile of snow on the little birdhouse, all that sky, the visual joke of it... I guess I take a lot of photos like this, where I'm trying to just pick one little thing and isolate it. There's something wrong about them too, a little forced or gimmicky, really. I do like it, I'm just left a little dissatisfied somehow.

I suppose it would help if I really knew how to use my camera. Maybe I could get the little pinecones in crisp detail, with more depth or definition. This is my fantasy, at least. For now, most of the photos I take turn out to be nothing more than souvenirs, when I want them to be more like little stories. I love the photos from yesterday just for their strangeness, while I can't help but feel that these ones today are a little sad, like a group of words that has had a plot forced upon them.

Still, they recall how delighted I was when we woke up in the morning at the Hot Springs and all the steam had frozen into crystals covering each branch of every tree, and everything all moving with glitter in a way that you could never photograph even if you knew your camera better. It was like someone had made Christmas real again.

And of course the ranch was gorgeous and gave me a feeling of contentment and relief. It's so rare for me to not be on my way to somewhere else, but when you are at the ranch, you are always every day just There.

Wherever you go, there you are. I realize that's usually said as a kind of caution, an explanation for why a certain kind of person is never happy, but there's a flip side to it is really lovely if you think about it - I want to be There, wherever I am. I'm not always good at that. But with time, I'll get better. Don't you think?