Wishful Photography

You wouldn't know it by this particular day--it's gray and raining again--but we've had a brief patch of really nice weather lately: warm, sunny days when I could wear shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt and eat lunch outdoors on the patio. On one such day I took my camera when I drove into town to run errands.

I like to hold the camera up to the windshield and let it watch the scenery while I watch the road, snapping photos at random as I go along, wondering what kind of surprises will be in store when I upload the images. When I do that, almost all the images turn out looking like some version of this:

Sometimes, in between the deep-blue tint at the top of the windshield, the vent reflections on the bottom of it, and the smeary part at the side where the wipers don't reach, there's something that's lovely. It's up to me to find it, straighten it up, crop it out, and adjust the lighting and color to make up for what the thick glass has washed out. In the photo above, for example, I found this:

If you click on the images to enlarge and compare them, you'll notice that I digitally erased a telephone pole and the wires attached to it. When I take a ride on a pretty day, it's the beautiful things that catch my attention; my brain barely registers the ugly, manmade blemishes on Mother Nature's work until they show up in a photo and spoil the scene that was in my mind's eye. So I erase a telephone pole here, a road sign there, occasionally even a car if I can, and show you what I thought I saw.

Here are a few more images from my drive along New River Canal the other day. Aren't the wildflowers beautiful? And the clouds? And the live oak trees?

I greatly appreciate technology except when it's strung all across the sky.