Eye of the Beholder

I am enamored of the Hipstamatic camera app on my iPhone.  The original Hipstamatic was a camera invented by two guys in the early 80s who wanted to create a cheaper camera for the masses, so they created one in which all the parts were made of plastic (good for the masses, not so good for the environment.) Anyway, different combinations of film, lenses and flash were used with the end result being an old-timey feeling or otherworldly photos.  You never knew what you would get when you took a picture and the iPhone app manages to capture that and in many cases, the results are breathtaking.

I am drawn to these photos because to me, they are a reflection of a fantasy world.  The vibrant blues, greens and yellows enhance the reality of what you actually see in the viewfinder.  The resulting photos spark my imagination and to be honest, offer an escape from a sometimes overwhelming reality.  The lines are softer, gentler and the beauty of the moment captured by the lens is almost stark.

As a child, I escaped into alternate realities.  My first and enduring escape (and love) are books.  I think I have always known how to read and I was a voracious reader.   Several times a week, I walked to the library in Lake Anne and spent hours in its aisles.  The library was tiny, but to me it was a whole other universe.  In that library I discovered Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books, Nancy Drew, CS Lewis's Chronicle of Narnia, JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Agatha Christie, Perry Mason, Jane Eyre, Rebecca, Anne of Green Gables, Charles Dickens, The Grimm Brother's fairy tales and fables, Robinson Crusoe, Cherry Adams RN - the list goes on and on.  I would load up as many books as I could carry and I am sure the librarian smiled proudly as I trudged home with a stack of books I could barely see over.

Reading was my first addiction and like alcohol would later, took me away from the reality of my childhood.  If was a refuge from the chaos of living with my mother.  When I read, I was somewhere else, I was some-one else.  I could shut the world out with my nose in a book.  I was safe and no one could hurt me when I was in Narnia or the Shire or Dickens' London.

As I progressed through childhood, I found other means of escape as well.  I was lucky enough to live in a time and place where the great outdoors was all the freedom a child could desire.  It seemed I was always outside.  We had free rein to wander and explore - to become a part of the natural world.  My bike could take me anywhere.  We swam and sailed little Sunfish boats, fished off the dock, climbed trees, explored the secret tunnels under manhole covers.  We ran and played kickball, hopscotch, Red Rover and Freeze Tag.  We hung from and fell off monkey bars.  We sledded in the winter and crashed into trees and even streams.  We were fearless daredevils and we owned the world.  Whether I was lost in a book or conquering early Reston, I was safe. I remember the exhilaration and peace of being at the top of a tree and thinking that I was safer up there among the canopy of leaves than in my own home.  The view of the horizon promised adventure and escape just like the books did.

Nature has always held a special appeal for me.  I love being outside.  After Charles died, I began the healing process by the simple act of hiking.  The physical challenge coupled with the reward of sitting on the top Runyon, all of Los Angeles spread below me - the glittering ocean 15 miles west, the Oz-like downtown to the east, and the blue-brown Santa Anita mountains north - restored my soul.  This was my city as seen through the Hipstamatic viewfinder of my mind.  From a distance, you only see the beauty of the city, all the things that make city living difficult are hidden.  When I am in nature, I see the natural world through a magnifying lens.  I notice the shapes and colors of flowers and foliage.  I can see and feel the roughness of the tree bark or the seashells of a long-distant past in the hills of Tennessee - where there has not been an ocean for a very long time!  My imagination is sparked, my senses come alive, the part of my brain that is chaotic is stilled.  I feel as one with my world.

This last year has been one of great solitude.  I didn't make very many friends in Nashville.  I don't know why, but in retrospect, I think it wasn't to be; my path led somewhere else.  Until I found Percy Warner Park, I was adrift and could feel the blanket of depression starting to wrap around me again.  I needed a "Runyon Canyon" and it took me five months to find PWP.  I had heard of the park but didn't believe that such a place could exist in the middle of the city.  In AA we call that "contempt prior to investigation".  But when I found it, it became my second home. The day wasn't complete if Pink, Blue and I didn't hike.  It's trails were challenging and sometimes the heat and humidity almost did us in, but me and my two dogs loved it.  It was a mystical place, surprisingly not very well trafficked and that was fine with me.  Sometimes, I would hike the entire 5-mile loop and not run into one other person.  The park was all mine.

I love taking photos of the world around me.  I love that through my iPhone, I always have a camera at the ready.  I really started snapping pictures at Runyon in an attempt to capture the mood and the beauty of what I saw.  The photos in their own odd way, contributed to my healing.  Each captured moment served as a reminder of the beauty of my world.  All I had seen for five years was illness and death and pain, I had lost the ability to see anything else.  But the pictures I snapped with my phone were glorious, beautiful, real.  The reality wasn't what was in my head, it was in the viewfinder.  I had just forgotten how to see it.  Then I found the Hipstamatic app.  I was puzzled why I was so captured by its results.  I didn't was to escape reality but the photos are a call of the siren to me.  Then I realized that the  photos are not an escape into fantasy but simply a different view of reality - beautiful, haunting, vibrant. What I see in those ethereal photos helps me to remember that beauty is all around me; the fantastical nature of the photos is just an abstraction of the beauty of reality.  No harm no foul.

I seek out beauty today.  It is the sustenance of my soul.  I am soothed by an intricate web hanging between two branches or an amazing cloud floating over the water. Living so close to the water again, I am struck by the difference in light - the colors are more vivid, brighter, the horizon is different in a familiar way.  I am comforted and relaxed - safe.  I have learned to stop and see, to appreciate a moment that captures me and if I am lucky to freeze that moment forever in a frame.

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Below a selection of Hipstamatic prints:

Most of the time though, "real" beauty stands alone and doens't need my help (Thanks, God!):

Pax.