destinylaharris

Tag: Learning to look closer

  • 📷 Learning to Look Closer #10

    I think one of my favorite things about doing this series is realizing that I don’t actually have to go looking for something worth photographing.

    Most of the time, it’s already there.

    I just have to notice it.

    And apparently this week, the things that made me stop ranged from a tiny gothic sticker on a gas pump to Batman secretly being an alarm clock.

    So.

    You know.

    A very normal assortment of things. 😂

    A Tiny Gas-Pump Stranger

    I stopped for gas this week and noticed this little lady hanging out on the pump.

    That’s it.

    That’s the entire story. 😂

    I have absolutely no idea who put her there.

    I don’t know how long she’s been there.

    But there was something about this tiny, gothic, horned woman sitting directly above a giant WARNING sign that made me stop for a second.

    Someone had this sticker.

    Someone decided this gas pump was where she belonged.

    And now everybody who stops there gets a tiny piece of that stranger’s personality without ever knowing who they were.

    I kinda love that.

    Lunch, According to Tiny Humans

    This one is not pretty.

    There is absolutely no artistic arrangement happening here. 😂

    But this is what happens when you let a four-year-old and two one-year-olds have opinions about lunch.

    Reese’s-filled pretzels.

    Mandarin oranges—or, judging by the crime scene, what used to be mandarin oranges.

    And whatever else apparently made sense at the time.

    There are peels everywhere.

    Containers everywhere.

    Wipes in the background.

    Random cups.

    Absolute chaos.

    And I almost wouldn’t have thought to take a picture of it because it’s just a messy table.

    Except…

    it’s also one of those pictures I think I’ll like more later than I do right now.

    Because someday there won’t be tiny people making absolute disasters out of lunch.

    And this?

    This is what life looked like while there were.

    Messy counts, too.

    The Sky Was Showing Off

    And then there was this morning.

    Nothing particularly interesting was happening underneath that sky.

    Buildings.

    A fence.

    A basketball hoop.

    Trees.

    Just ordinary things I see all the time.

    But above all of it?

    That.

    Pink.

    Orange.

    Purple.

    One of those sunrises that makes you stop whatever you’re doing for a second because apparently the sky has decided to be dramatic before you’ve even fully started your day.

    And I’m glad I noticed.

    Because a few minutes later, it was gone.

    Wait…That’s a Clock?

    And finally:

    Batman.

    One of my kiddos brought this into class today, and at first I didn’t think anything of it.

    It was LEGO Batman.

    Cool.

    Then I looked again.

    Wait.

    Is Batman telling me what time it is?

    😂

    Apparently, yes.

    It was an alarm clock.

    I had looked directly at the giant digital numbers in his stomach and somehow my brain had decided those were simply none of my business.

    And weirdly enough, I think Batman might sum up this entire series better than anything else I photographed this week.

    Because Learning to Look Closer doesn’t always mean finding something beautiful.

    Sometimes it does.

    Sometimes you look up and catch a sunrise before it disappears.

    But sometimes it means noticing a tiny sticker somebody left behind.

    Sometimes it means realizing that the messy table in front of you is evidence of a very specific season of your life.

    And sometimes…

    it means looking at LEGO Batman twice before realizing the man has been telling you the time this entire time.

    😂

    There are things worth noticing everywhere.

    Beautiful things.

    Funny things.

    Messy things.

    Completely pointless little things that make you smile for half a second.

    You just have to actually look at them.

    Until next time,

    —Destiny

    P.S. What’s something you’ve looked directly at before realizing what you were actually looking at? 😂

  • Learning to Look Closer #8

    I almost didn’t take this picture.

    There wasn’t anything particularly exciting happening.

    I wasn’t somewhere new.

    There wasn’t a perfect, wide-open view of the sunset.

    There were just trees.

    A lot of them, actually. 😂

    Branches everywhere. Power lines near the bottom. One tree that looks like it gave up on having leaves before everybody else.

    And somewhere behind all of it, the sky was glowing.

    So I stopped.

    And I looked up.

    The sunset wasn’t perfectly framed. The trees blocked most of it. I couldn’t see the horizon, and there was no way to get a “better” view without going somewhere else.

    But I didn’t really want a better view.

    I liked this one.

    Because the light kept finding little places to come through.

    Between the branches.

    Through the leaves.

    Around the trees.

    Little pieces of gold tucked into all that darkness.

    And the longer I stood there looking at it, the more there was to see.

    There was still blue hiding at the top of the sky.

    Soft pink mixed into the clouds.

    Bright yellow and orange burning through the thickest parts of the trees.

    Living branches tangled together with bare ones.

    None of it was neat.

    None of it was unobstructed.

    And somehow, that made it prettier.

    I think sometimes we get so used to looking for the perfect view that we forget to appreciate the one we actually have.

    We want the sunset without the power lines.

    The sky without the branches.

    The picture without anything getting in the way.

    But maybe everything in the way is part of the picture, too.

    Maybe the trees weren’t blocking the sunset.

    Maybe they were showing me where the light was.

    So, I took the picture.

    Not because it was perfect.

    Just because I looked up at the right moment and thought,

    Oh.

    That’s pretty.

    And sometimes, that’s reason enough.

    —Destiny

    P.S. When was the last time you stopped to look at something ordinary long enough to realize it was actually kind of beautiful?

  • Learning to Look Closer #6

    see this thing all the time.

    It’s a sensory board we have at work, covered in hundreds of tiny sequins. The kids can run their hands across them, flip them back and forth, change the colors, make patterns, or sometimes just enjoy the feeling of them moving beneath their fingers.

    Normally, I see it from above.

    A bunch of colorful sequins.

    Then I put my camera almost level with it.

    And suddenly, it looked enormous.

    Individual sequins became little overlapping discs of color. The ones closest to my camera stayed sharp while everything behind them melted into tiny circles of light.

    It almost looked like a landscape.

    Nothing about the sensory board had changed.

    I had.

    Or, more specifically, my perspective had.

    That’s something I love about photography.

    It gives me an excuse to look at ordinary things from angles I probably never would otherwise.

    Sometimes looking closer really does mean getting closer.

    Other times, it means getting lower.

    Turning something around.

    Looking underneath it.

    Standing somewhere you normally wouldn’t.

    Because sometimes there isn’t anything new waiting to be discovered.

    Sometimes you’ve already seen it a hundred times.

    You just haven’t seen it like this yet.

    — Destiny

    P.S. Pick something ordinary around you today and look at it from an angle you normally wouldn’t. You might be surprised by what it turns into.

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  • Learning to Look Closer #5

    Sometimes looking closer means seeing something beautiful.

    Sometimes it means looking into your aquarium and wondering what exactly your snail thinks she’s doing.

    Because apparently the glass wasn’t interesting enough.

    The plants weren’t interesting enough.

    No.

    She needed to climb.

    All the way to the top.

    And then hang there like this was a completely normal decision.

    So, naturally, I grabbed my camera.

    I’ve watched snails move around an aquarium plenty of times, but there was something different about seeing her from this angle.

    Usually, we see the shell first.

    The spiral.

    The part that makes us immediately recognize a snail as a snail.

    But from underneath, she looked completely different.

    Her shell became this enormous shield above her body. Her tiny head peeked over the edge. One little antenna stretched outward while the other disappeared somewhere behind her.

    And somehow, an animal we usually think of as slowly crawling along the bottom had managed to get herself all the way up there.

    I think that’s what I like about taking pictures of little things.

    You start noticing how strange everything actually is.

    Snails climb.

    Moths have fuzzy heads.

    Insects have colors and patterns we can’t see until we’re inches away.

    Things that seem ordinary from a distance become almost alien when you get close enough.

    And this particular little alien apparently wanted the penthouse view.

    I have no idea what she was looking for up there.

    Maybe nothing.

    Maybe she simply discovered she could climb it and decided to keep going.

    Either way, I’m glad I stopped long enough to notice.

    Because sometimes looking closer doesn’t reveal some profound lesson about life.

    Sometimes it just reveals a snail doing something weird.

    And honestly?

    I think those moments deserve to be noticed, too.

    — Destiny

    P.S. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever caught one of your pets doing?

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  • Learning to Look Closer #4

    Most people probably wouldn’t have stopped for her.

    She was just a little brown moth outside near the cat food.

    And with cats around, that probably wasn’t the safest place for her to be.

    So I picked her up.

    I expected her to fight me.

    To flutter her wings, scramble away, or do whatever tiny moths do when a giant human suddenly decides to scoop them up.

    She didn’t.

    She just let me.

    No fighting.

    No struggling.

    She sat completely still on the tip of my finger while I carried her somewhere safer.

    And maybe I’m giving a tiny moth far too much credit, but in that moment, it felt a little like trust.

    So, naturally, I stopped to look closer.

    Up close, she wasn’t just a little brown moth anymore.

    Her head was covered in soft, golden-brown fuzz. Her wings looked almost like velvet, folded neatly against her back. Her antennae were impossibly thin, and those tiny black legs held onto my finger while I moved her away from danger.

    She was beautiful.

    Not in the bright, obvious way butterflies tend to be.

    Moths are quieter about it.

    Butterflies get flowers and gardens and people stopping to take pictures.

    Moths get porch lights and people trying to shoo them out of the house.

    But look closer.

    There’s something beautiful about them, too.

    Maybe that’s one of my favorite things about taking pictures.

    It gives me an excuse to stop long enough to notice things I might otherwise walk right past.

    The fuzzy head.

    The tiny feet.

    The way plain brown wings turn almost golden when the light hits them.

    And sometimes, a tiny creature trusting you enough to let you carry her somewhere safe.

    She was only on my finger for a little while.

    But it was long enough for me to notice her.

    Sometimes that’s all it takes.

    — Destiny

    P.S. What’s something small you almost overlooked lately?

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