red_dirt_road_photography 's photostream

All at once, it was there, laid out in front of me plain, simple, and perfect - the red dirt road. Running next to the old railroad track turned bicycle trail was this red clay icon of life in the south, and what struck me most was not how it wandered into a deep green wood, but how rich and intense the color stayed as the path wandered away. Immediately I tried to liken the deep rusty red of that southern clay soil to something else in my mind. As red as. . .as red as. . .but it was exactly as red as itself. I realized then that it's the human-made things in life that we struggle to liken to nature's palette of true colors. This red clay was simply as red as red clay. Perfect in and of itself. And in that moment of realization, the rest of the world opened up to me - or, rather, my eyes opened up to it. All around, the prism of summer light sparkled in a thousand greens in the leaves of trees and blades of grass, infinite shades of brown in the blackwater streams, the dimpled skin of the juicy sweet orange I'd brought for a snack, the glistening petals of tiny wildflowers in purple and white and yellow. Rich, saturated, intense, and so full of life that they will not be denied, these pieces of nature have jumped right into my digital camera, and now I offer them to you. Enjoy.