Perspective can cast things in different light
- John Lorson: The Rail Trail Naturalist
- August 19, 2024
- 436
In a long-ago moment way back in the late 1980s, my (then future) wife and I were watching the sunset while sitting on a thin stretch of beach on Assateague Island, Virginia. This particular perch positioned us where facing either east or west delivered the illusion of looking across an endless sea.
As Midwesterners each of us had been to the Atlantic a handful of times, but neither had ever been to the opposite coast to watch the sun actually sinking into the sea. I saw this as a passable substitute and faced west to watch the deep-red disk of the sun melt into the water, tugging all its golden glow from the sky behind it.
“Have you ever seen so many different shades of blue?” Kristin said from over my shoulder. “It’s like every different hue lined up from the top of the sky to the horizon.”
I was seeing a breathtaking amount of color to be sure, but blue was nowhere in the picture. When I turned to ask her if she was losing her mind, I realized Kristin was actually facing the opposite direction.
Rather than watch the sun setting in the west, she was moved instead to “watch the dark rise” in the east. The seamless continuum of blue was there, just as she had described it, and its glory was astounding. I’ve never watched a sunset since without taking a moment to gaze in the opposite direction toward the coming of the night. The lesson of the whole episode being that intentionally changing one’s perspective — even for a moment — can cast a scene in an entirely different light.
One of the things I’ve grown fond of over the years as I’ve wandered about with camera in hand is trying to position my lens to catch an entirely different view of my subject than one might typically encounter. It’s fun to see what the world looks like from ground level looking up or from the apex of the sky looking down. The underside of a mushroom becomes the ceiling of a ballroom, and a flyover of a greasy mud puddle becomes a rainbow across a cloudless sky.
Take a minute to move yourself around as you eyeball the next interesting thing you find in the outdoors. A change of perspective may give you an entirely different view.
If you have comments on this column or questions about the natural world, write The Rail Trail Naturalist, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email jlorson@alonovus.com. You also can follow along on Instagram @railtrailnaturalist.