The Meaning: Berkshires
My relationship with this photograph is complex. It goes against the simplicity I believe art should have, not because of what it portrays, but because of how it came to be.
Berkshires was an accident. It was fate.
““There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be...””
It was a cloudy Sunday morning, and I had everything planned. I knew where I wanted to go, I knew what I wanted to do, and I knew the compositions I wanted to make… I just knew…
I had built so many expectations that my mind was denying the fact that it had started to rain outside.
And when it rains, it pours.
By this point, I had driven for almost three hours. I was so far away from home to just turn back, and yet not close enough to the expectation I had in my mind. I knew I needed to continue. Just a bit more would do. When, a few minutes later, the rain subsided.
I barely had time to think anything through. From my car I looked around and saw mountains, fog, trees, and the powerful, relentless clouds above my head. A few feet away I spotted a bridge, and I knew it had to be it. I pulled over in the emergency lane, grabbed my camera, turned the hazard lights on, looked around quickly, and crossed the road.
What I saw in front of me took my breath away. Unplanned, unannounced, unexpected, and still majestic.
In that moment I realized that no matter how much planning goes into something, how much idealism I have, controlling all the outcomes is impossible. There’s no need to duel on that.
Resilience is what Berkshires means to me.
The rain will come, sure, and there’s nothing we can do about it. But even under the darkest storms, life finds its ways. Beauty never disappears if you allow yourself to be humble enough to see it.
And while it rains, we can maybe sing in it.