Gloomy Beauty
- Christa Salinas
- Oct 27, 2014
- 4 min read
Port Aransas Weekend Getaway
This past September, Ryan & I were invited for a quick weekend getaway with some of our greatest friends, Beverly & Frost, along with some other wonderfully new friends. We ventured off to Port Aransas for our last beach time funfest before fall & "winter" really rolled into Texas. The weather attempted to steal away our enthusiasm & excitement for the weekend with rain storms following in our path most of the drive down. Needless to say, we were not going to be fooled and scared off by little rainy storm clouds! The weekend consisted of relaxing beach visits, eating at Moby Dick's, decilous breakfast feast, golf cart Whataburger run & priceless fun with people we love.
Seagulls are some of the greatest beach subjects! They are wonderfully excited by any sight of food or fun! Storming around us, attacking Beverly as we all ate Cheetos by the truck, I was able to capture the foreshadowing, grey-blue skies that shone behind them in the late afternoon. As we sparingly tossed a Cheeto or two, they battled against each other for the chance to have delicious treat. I enjoy the swirls and whirls of the smoky clouded skies & how the sun would peek in & out of the sheets of white.
Extremely excited to be at the beach, Beverly insisted & persisted to add a golf cart into the adventure that was ahead for the weekend. After a self battle in making the decision of renting a golf cart chariot for the weekend, she decided she was all for it! Being it her first time to drive a golf cart, I would giver her a solid 10 for enthusiasm & chauffer skills. More than anxious to offer anyone a ride to wherever their heart desired, she was the most exceptional & polite chariot driver. This image was taken as we "raced" down the beach drive looking & scouting out a spot to call ours for the day. This excursion was an all inclusive; splashing through puddles, sand kickbacks, bumps & thumps, the occassional swerve, endless amounts of wind in your hair & waves of sand dunes directing us to our unknown destination.
Along our scenic drive to discovering the perfect spot to settle at, there were these wonderfully simple & tilted picnic tables on a part of the beach. I enjoyed the minimal picturesque quality of them. Offering any beach-goer a nice spot to settle their rumpus without covering it in sand & perhaps, just perhaps, finally successfully eating a sandwich without sand ... yes, this was a beautiful gesture from the beach gods and goddesses. What a thought-filled piece of furniture for any beach-goer to relish in. Not to mention, the sky that filled the picture frame, was simply beautiful. I am one to fancy in the gloomy nature that the sky can offer at times. Sometimes, it is just much more appealing, dimensional & narrative.
Not the most "beautiful" piece of nature in the stereotypical sense, however, the entangled weaves & nest-like quality of the seaweed was so alluring, I could not pass up on this opportunity. In the center, buried in some of the seaweed (that covered almost the entire beach) there was a string of tiny shells that laid nuzzled in the nurturing seaweed grass. The act of motherly love caught my eye as well as the natural composition of colors. If you haven't realized (from past posts) I am very interested in color scheme & composition. Colors speak words to me simply in how I personally relate to them & the sense of emotional connection with our human nature & memories. If I were to ask my students, "What colors do you associate with motherhood or moms," I sense they would give me robotic answers like, "pink because she is a girl!" or "red because women wear red lipstick and its feminie." Brown is very motherly to me; simply put, it connects to nature for me which connects to mother nature & earth, wihch is very nurturing & refreshing or renewing & mothers simply do that for us. They renew our senses, give birth to us, nurture our emotions, feelings, burdens, etc. I don't mean to ramble, but that's my color ramble. I just find it so intriguing & marvelous how we can relate so differently & uniquely to something so simple as color.
To finish off this post about our adventure, I will close with this portrait of the restroom found near our carefully chosen spot at the beach. The restroom seems to glow with the flush brilliance of the sky. Illuminated but not shining as if the sun were out. It was a very blue inspired scene that was soft & quite & still. But don't be fooled, many a happening waits inside the restroom ... unfortunately. Sure, it is just a restroom, but I savor the ironic play that is created. It appears clean & charming while something not everyone feels comfortable talking about takes place inside.
I hope you have enjoyed these photographs. Please feel free and obligated to peruse the website and look at other works of mine. Always encouraged & greatly appreciated, visit the CONTACT tab which can be found under the ABOUT tab. Any words of constructive criticism, stores, connections, or how your day is going, is simply a joy & cherished experience. Thanks again!
