When life throws you curveball after curveball and brings you to the brink of falling to your knees in defeat it's hard to believe anything good will ever come your way. Times like that are when it's most important not to give up because when shit is hitting the fan hard things can't really get worse.
I'll spare you the details but for the first two months of this year I was slapped in the face with graduate school rejections, job rejections, and a friendship gone awry all of which crushed my positivity and urge to go out and shoot. For a long time my attitude towards the future was bleak. In many ways it still is. However, in that period of gut-wrenching and heart-rending disappointment I forced myself to go out in the elements to shoot some very mood-appropriate weather. As the rain falling on myself and my camera turned to hail I felt a sort of cathartic release of my internal stresses that were shattering my glassy ambitions. Things just seemed to wash away with the rain...
Some positivity did come from my patience. In the past month I landed a temporary job, scored an interview (and nailed it) for a biologist position at the California Academy of Sciences, and bought a new Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 lens to fuel my wildlife photography madness. When you hit rock bottom the only place you can go is up. Force yourself to get out there and do something you enjoy when all you feel like doing is curling up under the blankets and sleeping for an entire weekend. Here's some images I took during the past few months of dark times. I hope you enjoy.
Tumultuous clouds flow over the hills of Briones Regional Park as a large storm approaches the East Bay
A western bluebird (Sialia mexicana) feasts in the rains in San Ramon, California
A white-breasted nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis) searches for insects in Martinez, California
A Say's phoebe (Sayornis saya) ruffles its feathers after preening in the rain in San Ramon, California
Here's to hoping things pick up for all of us—
