Hidden Potential

This morning I’m indulging in a rare treat and watching HGTV.  I don’t have cable, so the treat really is rare.  The show that’s on is called “Hidden Potential”.  The show fascinates me because I’m always thinking about what I could possibly do with my condo which is sorely in need of some found potential!

You look somewhere and see nothing.  You see all that’s wrong and very little, if anything, that is right.  Sometimes it takes a good solid dose of vision, faith, and creativity to find the potential that’s there.  I did this when I spent time photographing in the Walmart parking lot.  And I even did it this past week out in the Berkshires.  The Berkshires are definitely beautiful on their own and it doesn’t require a whole lot of vision or imagination to see it.  But this year, there wasn’t that much red.  It was more yellow, green, brown, and bare.  So, vision and searching were necessary in order to find those little pops of red and to maximize them.

This red tree was one of the few I found.  It was a very young tree planted in the landscaping of the vacation condo complex we were staying in.  One more step to the right and I would have been walking in to the wall of the condo.  I danced around this tree playing with camera angles and composition.  No, I don’t want the stop sign in this photo.  Or the car.  Or the other building….  It took a little bit of work, but I found it. 

But I wasn’t satisfied.  To me, it still looked a little contrived and didn’t have that simple feel that I like.  So I kept looking throughout the week.

Finally, on the last day of vacation, and of course the one rainy day of vacation, I found it.  Same tree.  Same location.  Very different result.