Scarlett Shutterbug's photostream

I wonder how it all got started, this buisness
about seeing your life flash before your eyes
while you drown, as if panic, or the act of submergence,
could startle time into such compression, crushing
decades into the vice of your desperate, final seconds.

After falling off a steam ship or being swept away
in a rush of floodwaters, wouldn't you hope
for a more leisurely review, an invisible hand
turning the pages of an album of photographs-
you up on a pony or blowing out candles in a conic hat.

How about a short animated film, a slide presentation?
Your life expressed in an essay, or in one model photograph?
Wouldn't any form be better than this sudden flash?
Your whole existance going off in your face
in an eyebrow-singeing explosion of biography-
nothing like the three large volumes you envisioned.

Survivors would have us believe in a brilliance
here, some bolt of truth forking across the water,
an ultimate Light before all the lights go out,
dawning on you with all its megalithic tonnage.
But if something does flash before your eyes
as you go under, it will probably be a fish,

a quick blur of curved silver darting away,
having nothing to do with your life or your death.
The tide will take you, or the lake will accept it all
as you sink toward the weedy disarray of the bottom,
leaving behind what you have already forgotten,
the surface, now overrun with the high travel of clouds.
"The Art of Drowning" By: Billy Collins

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you - Nobody - too?
Then there is a pair of us?
Don't tell! They'd advertise - you know!

How dreary - to be - Somebody!
How public - like a frog -
To tell one's name - the livelong June -
To an admiring Bog!
"I'm Nobody! Who are you?" By: Emily Dickenson

My name is Scarlett, and my life began February fifteenth about fifteen years ago. My home is currently in the beautiful region of the Milky Way Galexy, on the third planet from the sun, the beautiful little blue-and-green planet known as earth, in the little lump of land known as North America, in the "home of the free" called the United States, and, finally, on the Heart Of The Homeland, Oklahoma. In that order.

I've gotten used to people spelling my name wrong all the time, using only one "t" instead of two. My friends have nicknamed me "Gone With The Wind," a nickname I have come to know and love, even though I have neither read the book nor seen the movie. I just haven't ever exactly gotten around to it.

My mother is a photographer, and I learned just about everything I know about photography from her, and the books I've read on the subject. I usually do close-up photography, because I like taking pictures of small things, but recently I've been practicing taking pictures of people, mostly my family and friends. I love to have my picture taken, and it really gets on my nerves when I try to take a picture of my friends and they cover their faces screeching "No! No! I look terrible!"

Most of the pictures I take are just straight from my camera to my computer, since I'm too lazy to edit them, and I'm not good at it. But, I'm trying to teach myself. I LOVE getting comments on my pictures. It just makes my day that much better when someone says something nice about something I put all my heart and soul into. ^^

I ALWAYS try to reply to Flickr mail, and I'm online ALL the time, so if you feel the need, just type a few sentences and click "send!" 8D But, be warned, I HATE chatspeak, to and extent. "Lol", "Brb", and "Gtg" don't usually get on my nerves as much, but something like "Lol i jst saw the funyst ting evr!!!1!!11!" is just going to make me want to punch my monotor. Please don't make me do that. Please.

That's all for now! Thanks for stopping by!