Your Mind’s Eye

It May be too Limiting

What do you visualize of when you hear someone say that they are going to visit Colorado?

Most of us already have a picture in mind even before that person finishes his/her sentence.

It doesn’t matter if they are visiting New York City or Texas, Paris or Timbuktu. And of course it doesn’t matter if we’ve never before visited that place. We’re all influenced by our mind’s eye – the previous information and images that we’ve associated with that particular place.

This past year I visited Colorado on several different occasions. As I reviewed a few of the photos taken during my visits, I found it interesting to see how these photos aligned with my idea of “Colorado” images. These three photos contains what I most closely identify with Colorado: mountainous, snow, lots of wildlife.

Colorado, being a large state has quite varied terrain. So as not to shortchange Colorado, I wanted to take a few photos that expand my preconceived notion of the state. These stacks of hay in Del Norte show that there’s plenty of farming and ranching here. I believe that the yellow trees are aspens growing near Cortez – part of the high plains desert. This leafless cottonwood tree sits close to a nearby stream near Salida – running water is another trademark of Colorado.

 
So I keep telling myself: don’t fixate on the “mind’s eye”. I tell the photographer in me to keep eyes wide to everything when traveling. Colorado is more than the Rockies, New York City is more than the Statue of Liberty, Texas is more than the Alamo and Paris is more than the Eiffel Tower.

 
Written by: Arnie Lee