Rewind 8 - Tulips, Cameras, and Answers to Prayers

The Rest of the Story

I need to exercise in the worst way but that just always seems like an extravagance to me.  In order to give myself more incentive, I've decided to take advantage of my annual pass to Thanksgiving Point and go walking there with my camera  (see my earlier posts from April).  I went one day during the Tulip Festival and came home with more photos of tulips than a whole host of life needs  Click Here to See Other Photos . Had scheduled myself there again a second time on Monday morning, April 28.  

There was a photo contest going on in connection with the Tulip Festival and I wanted to enter it just for the challenge of stretching my photo experience.  When a person enters a competition - any competition - they have to sharpen their skills, have to practice harder, have to put effort into it.  So that Monday morning I felt like all the photos I had from the week before, though definitely beautiful, were nothing unique and different enough to rise to the challenge of the competition.  So I did something very unheard of: I prayed about it.  Was it selfish of me to ask God to help me understand lighting better, and to understand his miraculous world better so I could share it?  Not to win the competition.  Just to be able to do my best at it?

As I prayed for His help that morning, I had a distinct impression that I should find a spot where I could get the fresh snow on the mountains behind some colorful tulips.  So when I went for my walk, I started looking for that spot.  Well, the Gardens at Thanksgiving Point are down in a ravine along the Jordan River.  The mountains mostly disappear behind the slopes of the ravine and getting any shot of tulips with mountains behind is almost nonexistent.  I took my walk.  It was cold.  It was gray and overcast and dreary, which isn't bad for photographing flowers because it's easier to get vibrant colors recorded on the camera.  But it is bad for a woman out walking alone with that camera.  My fingers were cold.  I put on gloves - examination gloves I carry in my bag because they protect a little from the cold, definitely from the wet, and yet I can still feel the controls and work the camera settings.  I wore two jackets -one with a hood, which I pulled up to cover my ears.  It was no wonder it was pretty much just me and the Garden workers there at that time. 

I took a lot of photos - I always do, but still had not found that one shot of the tulips with the mountains behind.  To add an extra challenge to the morning, I guess I did something to my hip the week before when I was squatting down a lot to get flower photos (they don't grow in trees, you know).  And I was really having problems getting down to their level that morning.  I was concerned after a couple of attempts that I may just not be able to get myself back up if I had to squat again to get the photo I was after.

Finally, I came to Vista Mound and walked the steps to the top.  There was a bed of jaunty yellow tulips at the base of shrubs that surrounded the top of the mound and with the steps I could actually get a shot from a little below them without endangering my life or requiring Thanksgiving Point to bring in a hoist to get me out of there.  

Yes, those are blue skies.  This photo was taken about a half hour later, after the clouds had cleared.

Suddenly there it was!  The mountain with snow on it and tulips in the foreground!

But the lighting at the time was horrible and the mountain still had dark clouds hanging over it.  I played around with the photo opportunities from the top of the mound.  I went up and down the steps.  I changed lens and experimented.  And then suddenly it happened.  The sun came out from behind the clouds and bathed the foreground in wonderful light.  I snapped away as fast as I could.  And then just that quick, the sun was gone again.  But that was okay.

When I got home, I pulled up the photos. Oh the choices!  There were so many!  I posted some of my favorites on line, including a cropped portion of the one with the mountain, and asked my friends what their favorite was.  Everyone had a different favorite.  That was no help at all.

So I played with the full photo on Photoshop a little.  Nothing drastic.  Just a little added vibrancy to the tulips, increased the light along the top of the shrubs slightly, whitening the snow on the mountain just ever so much so it did not hide with the clouds, and ended up with a photo closer to what I remembered seeing instead of what the camera saw.  I picked one more favorite photo and asked again which was everyone's favorite.  At this point, the mountain photo was the hands-down (or is that hands up?) favorite.

But it still wasn't my favorite.  I'm not sure why, but in the spring I don't want to see mountains with snow. But I kept thinking back to my prayer and the inspiration I felt at the time to do a photo with tulips and snow covered mountains.  So that is the photo I submitted.

I returned to the Tulip Festival with Stephanie and Makinzee and the kids and Edna, too, on the Thursday before it ended  (May 1 - perfect May Day activity!). The place was packed.  The sun was out.  It was a wonderful day to visit, but a difficult day to take photos of the tulips, in spite of the fact they were being crazy vibrant and gorgeous.  Mostly that day was about enjoying family.  (Click here for photos) 

The same hill where I took the photo I entered in the contest.  Very different weather.  Very very different access!

On Friday, May 9 - after the "Festival" had officially ended, Heather met me at the Gardens for another visit.  No crowds.  It had been raining, once again, but the skies cleared as we were there and it turned into a beautiful morning.  Just a peaceful, great time for Mother/Daughter time.   We watched geese fight and goslings swim, fed the Koi, we both took photos and the time just went by too quickly.   (Photos We Both Took)

It was a great morning and with the pressure of the contest off my plate, fun to just take photos of what I felt like taking.

Thanksgiving Point posted all the entries later that day.   The one with the most "likes" would receive the People's Choice award.  There would, of course, be other awards given as well, and I really did not/do not anticipate receiving even one.  I am satisfied that I did my best. 

But a strange thing happened.  The photos that everyone else posted could have easily come from my own files.  There were dozens upon dozens of photos sent in that matched so many in my own photo library.  I have an almost identical shot - maybe even better - as the one that was initially second in number of likes. 

But there was only one photo with tulips in the foreground and snow-frosted mountains behind.  And since Friday, the response has been overwhelming.  I figured the People's Choice award would be like all other Facebook incentives - a popularity contest.  The person who can get the most friends and friends of friends to go in and vote for them walks away winner.  Well, the most "likes" I've ever had for anything has been under 20, so I went into this with no aspirations in that arena at all.  I just wanted to know I did as good a job as I could, and I have that satisfaction.   But almost from the minute the photos were posted, the “likes” on my entry have came in steady and strong.  It was overwhelming and humbling.  I wish there was a way to thank every single person who took the time to look at the photos and "like" them, not just mine but all the rest as well.

This experience has added to my testimony of how much our Father in Heaven really does answer our prayers.  I know this is not "my" photo.  It is His.  What a sweet gift!  He gave us the wonderful world and all the daily wonderful 'photos' that come with each breathing moment of our lives.  We are so blessed.  I feel so incredibly humbled, once again, to be one of His daughters and to have been selected to live at this time upon the earth when, as a daughter of God, I have been given so many opportunities.  At this point I feel like a total winner.  The results of the contest no longer really matter.  I have experienced so many emotions - everything from humble amazement to getting 'puffed up' in my own pride to seeing the stories behind other photos and realizing just how inconsequential this is in the scheme of things and being humbled again - and have learned so much.  Today that's where I am at: just grateful to live on this wonderful world and to have the experiences I get to experience.

Winners are supposed to be announced some time today.  I've been anxious to see who wins.  One day I went through all the photos, trying to determine which ones I would vote for if I were the judge.  That turned out to be a fruitless task.  Which one?  There are so many great photos!  In every category, in every age group!  I guess that's always the case in something like this, but since it is my first photo contest I've ever entered, I'm seeing the photos with different eyes - with the eyes of someone who appreciates each photo for what it captures.  

I commented  the following on Thanksgiving Point's Facebook Page announcement about making an announcement:    "Every single photo entered has been a wonderful view of the Tulip Festival, and each photo has come with a different story behind it. We are so fortunate to have this small part of Eden in our own backyard here in Utah. I am not sure how the judges will come up with the winners because all the photos are winners in my book! But the biggest winner of all has to be the Gardens themselves. With such God-blessed beauty, how can the photos be anything but beautiful as well?"

Prologue - 9:31 pm. 
Thanksgiving Point has been closed for several hours.  I would like to think there is a room full of judges still desperately trying to decide on the winners, with candles dripping wax and midnight oil burning into the deepening dark of night.  And there are so many really good photos how can they ever make up their mind?   But they told us they would be ready to make the announcement today, so by crook or high water, that's what they're going to do.  However, the reality is, I think they simply did not get the job done and went home to enjoy the weekend.  Can't blame them.

However, after the checking the site way too many times today (watched pots don't boil, you know), it is disappointing to still be waiting to find out the winners.  Sigh.