Unexpected Beauty

“I rather think the world is like sand. The fundamental nature of sand is very difficult to grasp when you think of it in its stationary state. Sand not only flows, but this very flow is the sand.”
― Kōbō Abe, The Woman in the Dunes

I have made four trips to Charleston, South Carolina, in the past month and a half to photograph.  Due to the unusually early spring-like weather in February, followed by the freezing temperatures, I have found that what I went to photograph was often not what I was able to photograph.  Frequently, my best images are created when I photograph something other than what I initially set out to photograph.

This past Friday was a great example.  I had the morning to myself to photograph.  I decided to head out to the Folly Pier to catch the sunrise.  A sunrise photograph taken at Folly Pier is one that many individual photographers and photographers traveling in groups take home from Charleston.  I took many frames as the sun rose.  There were even some interesting clouds in the sky.  But, there just wasn’t enough holding my attention there.

I started to make my way back to the car, when my eye caught the ripples in the sand along the beach and on one particular dune.  I stopped immediately and began photographing  the scene holding my attention.

With each picture I took, I began to see more and more compositions.

Before I knew it, more than an hour had passed while I captured these wonderful patterns in the sand.

The next time you go out to photograph, photograph what you planned to capture, but always be open to all that is there around you.  If I had not “gone with the flow”, I might have missed seeing all of these wonderful images.