Look at the weird foreigner

Some of you may have seen this picture posted on my “photo of the week” page, but I wanted to share with you the story behind it.  First of all, I’ll go ahead and admit to you, the way my mind works is a little strange.  I walk out my door and what I see around me are pictures.  I see snapshots.  I see the way the light is hitting a leaf here, and how the shade of the flower there pops out against the wall.  That’s why it’s dangerous for me to take my camera with me whenever I’m on any kind of schedule.  I know I’ll get distracted and side-tracked from whatever mission I’m on.  However, there are some days in which I allow myself to get “swept up” in capturing the world around me.  Days when I have no obligations for a few hours.  I usually end up taking hundreds of shots.  If I’m lucky, one or two of those will really grab me.

The above picture was taken about two weeks ago.  I had an afternoon free and it was a glorious fall day.  The leaves were changing color, but the air was still warm enough to only require a light sweater.  Over the October holiday, I had discovered we have a pond on campus (yes, I’ve lived here for four years…but it’s a large campus…and I think they just built the pond last year…), so I decided to head out that way with my camera and some grad reading.  Apparently, I wasn’t the only person swept up in the day–there was a class of art students out at the pond sketching pictures.

I snapped many pictures and slowly made my way to a reading nook away from the coming and going of students.  I had brought a cushion to sit on, and sat down with my back resting against a tree.  Chinese people don’t sit on the ground.  It’s something they just don’t do.  But as my adviser once said, there are actions foreigners do that are offensive and then there are actions that are just weird. I think me sitting on the ground falls in the weird category.  Anyways, I sat for awhile reading, pausing frequently to snap pictures when the light hit just so.

As the sun started to slide toward the horizon, I packed up my things to head home.  I was making dinner for a teammate, so was walking back at a brisk pace…when I was halted dead in my tracks.  It was just one of those moments.  The sun was shining through a dreamy patch of willowy undergrowth.  I knew I had to stop.  So, despite the fact that the patch was right next to a main road through campus, I dropped my stuff and laid flat on my belly to get the shot I wanted.  All the stars aligned with the lighting…and just as I was shooting, some women passed by pushing bikes, adding interesting bokeh to the background.  I can only imagine what people passing by thought of the weird foreigner lying flat in the weedy undergrowth next to the road.  Actually, I don’t have to imagine the thoughts of all of them.  One passerby stopped and asked if he could take a picture.  No, not a picture of the beautiful scene I was trying to capture–but a picture of the weird foreigner taking a picture.  But this time, the surprised stares were worth the result, as this shot is one my favorites I’ve captured recently.