thresholds

http://www.kateyeview.com/2011/06/exploring-with-camera-thresholds-2nd.html

The Bridge into Morzine, France

'The Kat Eye View of the World' is a blog that I follow which features:

'Exploring with a Camera'

The current exploration is 'Thresholds' which I found very exciting when I read Kat's suggestions on what your own personal threshold picture could portray. I love her idea that the threshold you capture can have a personal meaning to you and this prompted me to choose the image above. It has huge meaning to me and is featured in my blog post http://backbehindthelens.blogspot.com/2011/03/im-in-france-morzine-ski-ing.html taken on a day when I needed to take some time out to do some photography. I was away ski-ing with a group of friends, a week after my Grandma had died, three months after my Father had died and on a day when I was exhausted physically and emotionally.

I took a day off and had some 'me time', walking in the early morning, the half an hour to the nearest town with my camera. It was a glorious day with stunning scenery to capture so all was going splendidly until I realised that the only way across the river and into Morzine was over this bridge. As you can see, its a very long bridge, its wooden and the valley floor is a very, very long way down, eek!

I stopped and asked a local who, with a mocking grin, informed me that there was a road over the valley but that it was another half hour walk away. Wonderful! The group I was ski-ing with were very experienced, fine skiers so I had had many 'brave me' moments at the edge of scary runs that week and quite a few hidden tears in my weakened, grieving state trying to keep up with them. To be faced with yet another challenge on my supposed day off from heroics was a bit of a blow!

Forcing myself, I stepped across the 'threshold' and made myself walk the planks. It was horrendous. Stopping in the middle of the bridge, swaying and giddy, gripping the rails in terror, desperately trying not to look down with tears streaming down my face, I yelled in absolute fury at the universe "haven't i been brave enough these last few weeks!!!"

WOW, it felt amazing!!! I had crossed a 'grieving threshold' and skipped (at 42 years old) the rest of the way over, crossing it in triumph again on the return journey, mad women!

Later that evening I crossed it a third time with the rest of the group, who were so scared by it that they refused to come back over again and we got a taxi back!

The second picture is of an entrance to a building that has stood unoccupied for years, which I always find immensely sad. Buildings that were once full of life, full of people, laughter and goings on. Now they are empty, lonely, you can almost see the building sigh. And that's where my mind starts to wonder......

"A place where you cross over, from one locale to another, whether real or imagined. Threshold images are not merely images of doors or gates, but they are of portals that transport you to someplace different in your imagination"

Thank you Kat, a truly inspiring post, I shall be out and about capturing more 'thresholds' today!