Friday, July 24, 2009

Wool Gathering On The Bayou


That Ain't No Bayou

Well, you caught me thinking about Tennessee. I want to be cruising through the mountains with the windows down and the cool air rushing in carrying the sounds of the rivers. Instead I cruising through Metairie on the Earhart Expressway with the A/C cranked up squeezing so much humidity from the air that my condensation lines are leaving a wake.

I need to find some landscapes to photograph. Metairie is suburbia at it's land-locked jam-packed goodness. It's no landscape, it's a place to hang your hat. It has no real cityscape, it has Veteran's Highway and billboards.

I guess I'm inured to the area I call home. I go to Tennessee and see beauty and mountains and my fingers can't keep clicking photographs. I go home and the camera goes back in the bag. What am I to photograph? The canals? The suburban traffic? Lakeside Mall? Yeah, I guess I should.

I need to open my eyes and get on my bicycle and ride this town. Maybe tomorrow morning I'll get up and go cruise around and see what's out there. I really should. I'm sure there's something out there that'll strike me as click-worthy.

I think that's what we all need to do. Count our blessings. See what's in our neighborhoods and find what's been hiding in plain sight. Quit wishing that you were back on vacation finding something new to see. Quit wondering why you're stuck in Nowhereville with nothing to see. Grab your cameras and be a tourist in your own town.

2 comments:

Leeuna said...

Ahh yes. Tennessee is the most beautiful state in the union. I wouldn't live anywhere else. I love the mountains and since we've had quite a bit of rain here this summer, I'm looking forward to some fabulous fall colors when the leaves change.

Leeuna

Christina said...

I love the idea of being a tourist in ones home town, I do it all the time. Does Metairie still have a bunch of little 24 hour diners off the cause way where breakfast is $3 and there's a room with video poker and slots, usually separated by saloon style doors? If so you should take pictures there, especially in the wee hours when the place is jammed with weary truckers and suburban kids stumbling home from a night on the town.