A lens too small

I took a walk this afternoon with my camera, intending to take pictures of Seattle in the spring, but in looking through what I found, it was all flowers.  I guess this is spring too, but it feels like they could be anywhere.  That isn’t how I feel about Seattle, but every time I wanted to take a picture I could only see the ugly bits that would appear in the frame- the telephone lines and the cars and the things that remind us we’re in a city.  I want to take a picture of downtown from the hill I walk down to the bus, but the glittering buildings look flat in pictures and the water of the lakes doesn’t shimmer in quite the right way. 

There is something so limiting about photography.  I think one of the reasons I tend to go towards abstract macro-lens images is because I don’t feel wide angle shots are ever wide enough.  I want the cold air, the shifting light, the clouds scudding across the horizon; all of it in a picture.  I want the contrast of spring-bright leaves catching sunlight against the grey about-to-rain sky, but I end up with one or the other most often.  

So believe me, this is a beautiful place.  Come visit and I will show you the things I see, but you’ll have to trust me.  Photography just isn’t doing it these days.