Hard Hearted - a photo on Flickriver

Hard Hearted

            We've been in a cycle of thunderstorms lately. Doesn't rain all day, but storms pop up, seemingly out of thin air, and unleash torrents of rain in just minutes. This photos represents the precursor to one of these events. Funny thing is I was neither storm chasing nor cemetery hopping on this torrid July afternoon. Yet fate once again put me in exactly the right place and time. My only contribution was recognizing the opportunity and lining up the photo. The entire episode was over in just a couple of minutes. But as is often the case, the effect was more lasting. Later I reflected on the foreground gravestone, specifically the cupid arrow-heart motif. Highly unusual; can't think of another like it. Seemed more reminiscent of a romantic carving in the bark of an old tree than an epitaph for a dead person. I thought back to standing in this exact place as a teenager. This cemetery happens to be close the the house in which I grew up. So naturally it was one I visited often (yes, this all started at a very early age for me). The heart stone was here then. But as with many cemeteries, the pioneer graves were surrounded by many empty plots, yet to be filled. I imagined hundreds of people that were alive and well at the time, now dead and gone, their passages currently represented by chunks of granite and marble that dot the landscape. They're gone, but I'm still here, standing next to heart stone on the verge of yet another thunderstorm. The cycle keeps repeating.
   

Taken on: July 8, 2021

Tags:

metaphor

analogy

grim

fatalistic

life

death

witness

boundary

liminal

shadowy

brooding

storm

transition

energy

drab

dreary

start

cemetery

passage

symbol

fleeting

history

childhood

imagination

cycles

generations

meaning

forlorn

Mount Hope « less

Groups appears in: • Graves, Tombs And Cemeteries • ..:: I LOVE DARK PHOTOS ::..

Camera: Apple iPhone 7, f/1.8, 1/196 sec, 4mm, ISO 20 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Apple iPhone 7
Lens:	iPhone 7 back camera 3.99mm f/1.8
Aperture:	f/1.8
Exposure Time:	0.005 sec (1/196)
Focal Length:	4mm
ISO:	20
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	On, Fired
Exposure Program:	Program AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop 21.2 (Macintosh)
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