Longing

 

Photo by Larry Raye, February 2012

The rainy days are here again. But the last shoot I did was during the nicer part of the day. Larry and I met at Peet's, enjoyed getting to know each other over black coffee, and then headed to a park nearby to shoot with Iris, my Brazilian Rainbow Boa. It was the first time I've taken her out of my house farther than the front of back yard. I was nervous, because a) she was far from a heat source and subject to dry air for a while and b) she can really move, when she decides to. Of course, I had her contained in a large storage bin with an old shirt for her to hide under, and a spray bottle, just in case. I did not plan for her to be out longer than a half an hour or so. She tried to dive for the ground when I first took her out but when we got to a good place she calmed a little. Iris is not the most still serpent around. She wants to get places. I hope that Larry was okay with all her movement. I know it's frustrating shooting a constant and unpredictably moving creature.

The rest of the shoot went well. We did a lot more hiking than shooting. It was cloudy and ready to rain by the time I got home in the afternoon. I found myself feeling strange and somehow "off" (it's been happening a lot lately) and had difficulty getting what I needed done. 

There is a word I used, or maybe it was Jake, for this image, that was longing. I do feel that there is much longing in my life right now. I am longing for other places, things, or people at any given point in time. I gather this all has to do with feeling unhappy. You want anything else but to face your own unhappiness when you are unhappy. Now that I've addressed that, I think I can stop "going" and appreciate what is here, now, and focus on what I am trying to accomplish here, now....have longing for what's in front of me.