WPC: Unusual

Pacific City, Oregon in October 2016

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The Daily Post’s Photo Challenge this week challenges us to publish a photo that is in someway unusual.  Photographer Lignum Draco challenges us to reach beyond our comfort zone of subject matter or technique, to feature a photo that is unique in some way.

I am sharing a series of previously discarded photos from my visit to the Oregon coast last October.  These were shot in the hours before a major storm hit the Pacific Northwest.

I was visiting Pacific City, Oregon, with my daughter and toddler granddaughter to enjoy some beach time together before the hurricane like storm socked us in for the next five days.  They were happily playing in the sand while I shot these images.

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My daughter, a trained pilot, always reads the sky.  She pointed out the approaching front drawing near hours ahead of schedule.  We gathered up little one, despite her howling protests, and got her back to the car and us back to my hotel just as the wind picked up and the first squall line of rain passed over us.

Weathering such a dangerous storm in a rented hotel room, perched high on a cliff above the crashing Pacific, reminds us of how fragile our lives can be.  Listening to the howling wind banging the dumpster lids of nearby hotels that night, wondering whether our power would stay on, and watching reports of flooding, tornadoes and wind damage to nearby communities made us grateful for our relative safety and comfort together.  We had heat, fresh coffee, hot water, and our internet connection throughout.

These photos speak to me of a greater fragility, however.  They demonstrate the fragility of our biosphere and the vulnerability of the thin layer of vegetation our planet supports.

Normally, I show you lush photos of gardens filled with plants.  My photos are filled with rich greens and vividly colored leaves or flowers.  I photograph pollinators and other garden wildlife sipping nectar or hiding out in the relative cool of our garden.

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Here, we see the truth of our life on this planet.  There is a thin strip of living green perched precariously on the underlying rock and soil of our Earth.  Once we destroy the vegetation, what is left won’t produce the oxygen we breathe or produce the crops which feed us.

Watching forests come down to make way for new shopping areas and town homes, vegetation ripped up for the inevitable widening of roads to make room for the growing population, and habitat destroyed for new power switching stations and pipelines has become a way of life in our country.  How short sighted the promise of profit can make us…..

I’m sharing an unusual subject, an unusual viewpoint, and an unusual mood through these photos today.  And I hope they will inspire us all to become fierce protectors of our planet Earth; our life-long mother and our larger home.

Woodland Gnome 2017

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For the Daily Post’s

Weekly Photo Challenge:  Unusual

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Siletz Bay, Lincoln City, Oregon October 2016

About woodlandgnome

Lifelong teacher and gardener.

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